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Telegraph • At The Tel-12 Mall • Southfield
1-800.354-5558
810-354-3300
CER BENEFIT
A cocktail party to raise funds for Nick Usherenko,
whose surgery and treatment for his rare form of
cancer will create enormous burdens for him, will
be sponsored by Don's Salon (where his wife
Luda is employed) in Applegate Square on
Northwestern Hwy in Southfield on Sunday, June
, between 4 and 7 p.m. For those unable to
attend the event, contributions may be made to
the Nick Usherenko Medical Fund and mailed to
Don's Salon at 29967 Northwestern Hwy,
Southfield, MI 48034. For further information,
call the Salon at (248) 358-2722.
Some of the members of the committee involved with the
benefit include Janice Cutler, Cheryl Chodun, Karen and
Dr. Brent Davidson, Paulette Freedman, Laurel and Charles
Gabe, Jill Leib, Gail and Ira Mondry, Sandy and Dr. Neal
Mozen, Joanne and Dr. Micha& Rowe, Verne and Dr
Edward Royal, Sandy, Gary and Lisa Scholnick, Bluma
Siegal, Edie and Donald Slotkin and Sharon Smith.
1960s and '70s, the FBI built up
an effective and relatively cheap
system to get flowers to market
on time. Every day a refrigerat-
ed truck visits the farms, takes
the flowers to a regional packing
house where they are packed and
sorted and then sent on, again by
refrigerated truck, to Agrexco's
air terminal where they are
flown out on the same day. From
field to market, the process takes
about two days.
Flower producers have also de-
veloped ways to keep their prod-
ucts fresh over a longer period of
time. The Israeli rose a British
man buys his sweetheart on
Valentine's Day was probably
picked five days earlier. Treat
it well at home and it will last an-
other 10 days. This is an area Eu-
ropean producers neglect because
they are just two hours away
from their market.
This, however, is only a tem-
porary gain. "South Africa and
South America may have a prob-
lem with logistics, but they'll
solve it," warns Mr. Frank. These
countries have also focused on
a longer shelf-life for their prod-
ucts.
Assortment is the next weapon.
Israel has begun to
specialize in new
varieties.
Apart from growing European
summer flowers during the win-
ter, Israel has begun to special-
ize in new varieties and breeds.
These include wild flowers tak-
en from New Zealand, Hawaii,
Mexico or the Australian bush
and adapted in Israel for the do-
mestic market. The new breeds,
many of which were brought to
Israel by the FBI, include
anigozanthos and leucadendron.
Flowers are cleaned and select-
ed genetically, a process which
takes some years.
New varieties have their risks,
however, as Mr. Frank is all too
aware. He has tried out a num-
ber of new varieties including
anigozanthos and allium, a wild
flower from Israel. Sometimes
the flowers work, sometimes they
don't.
"It takes at least five or six
years to commercialize a product
and there are no guarantees," he
complains. "Even those that do
work might not prove lasting.
The life of a product used to be
five to six years, now it's two to
three. If a new flower sells well
in the first year, then more breed-
ers try it out the next. By the
third year the market is often
glutted and prices fall. It's risky,
but we have no choice."
A development that has
alarmed him is the news that
some flower growers have
stopped investing in different va-
rieties because of financial diffi-
culties. "We need to change our
varieties every year if we want
to survive," he says. "If growers
decide not to invest, things will
get worse. We won't be able to
compete and survival is unlike-
ly."
He believes it is time the gov-
ernment stepped in and gave
farmers an injection of money to
help them bear the cost of this in-
vestment.
For companies which have the
means to do so, the answer to all
this uncertainty is to spread the
risk. A few years ago, Bickel
Flowers bought a biotechnology
company, now called Bickel
Biotechnology International
(BBI). Set up as a laboratory for
tissue culture plants, it initially
sold flowers as well as fruit and
vegetables. Today, however, the
flowers are gone.
'We've moved away from flow-
ers and are now selling vegetable
or industrial crops," says Neta
Levy, BBI's general manager.
"The flower market is doing bad-
ly. I can't compete."
Mr. Levy believes the flower
market is failing because "basic
needs come first. There's a
greater demand for food and less
money to spend on flowers, even
in Europe," he says.
Bickel Flowers is now pinning
its hopes on a new seedless toma-
to developed by BBI. The com-
pany anticipates that sales of the
crop will soon leapfrog parent
company sales.
Bickel is also diversifying into
real estate and is now moving
from its old offices near
Ra'anana. Earlier plans to set up
a joint-venture farm in Jordan
have been put on hold as a result
of the faltering peace process.
Not all flower growers can af-
ford to diversify, however, and
the FBI is exploring alternate op-
tions. In Europe there is a trend
of buying flowers at the super-
market. Most of these are at the
medium- to low-quality standard.
"I believe there's a place for high-
quality flowers," says Mr. Haaze.
It is an area he is developing vig-
orously.
Another area sure to find fa-
vor in ecologically-aware Europe
is environmentally friendly flow-
ers, i.e. flowers that have not
been treated with pesticides or
chemicals. A highly successful
experiment is now being under-
taken in the Negev. "We can do
it; I don't know if the Kenyans
and Ecuadorians can," says Mr.
Haaze.
The Israeli government has
also woken up to the problems
farmers face and is now in the
process of introducing a long-
term loan system which will help
farmers who want to invest in
new technology and new vari-
eties.
Whether this will be enough
remains to be seen. ❑
(c) Jerusalem Post 1997
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