Starter Kit. Idea 279 of 500. Cluster 14
Orchid nurseries for export, which Singapore built from nothing
The mechanism, from the book
The smallholder sells raw to a collector at the gate and the collector sells to a packer who puts his own name on it. Denmark's farmers got rich the day they owned the creamery.
The first step
List the orchids you can propagate now, with photographs and the number of plants you could supply each month. Send that list with a price per plant to orchid nurseries and plant importers in Europe and the Gulf, and ask what species, sizes and certificates they need. A reply naming a species, a quantity and a price is the order book you build the nursery around.
- Who pays first
- A plant importer who sells potted orchids and wants a new supplier with rarer varieties at a lower cost.
- What leaves today
- The island has the climate for orchids but sells few abroad, and the trade Singapore built from nothing belongs to others.
Ask first
- Department of Agriculture. Ask what plant-health certificates orchid plants need for export.
- Department of Wildlife Conservation. Ask whether any orchid species you propagate is protected from export.
Check before you spend
Whether each orchid you sell may be exported, which permits protected species need, and what plant-health checks the buyer's country applies.
Find out these three numbers
- What do nurseries abroad pay per plant?
- How many plants a month can you propagate?
- How many plants arrive abroad in good condition?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.