At one of Ecuador’s oldest flower farms, workers are planting hemp on land that was traditionally used for roses, making a bet that selling cannabinoid products wold help offset the decline in flower sales caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Declining sales spurred by COVID-19 dealt a heavy blow to Ecuador’s flower sector, one of the Andean nation’s traditional export industries, leaving farms cutting output or seeking to reinvent themselves.
The Boutique Flowers farm in Tabacundo, an hour north of the capital, Quito, has built cannabis greenhouses to take advantage of recent legal reforms that allow for cultivation of the plant — even though marijuana remains illegal.
Photo: Reuters
Marijuana contains higher levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the cannabinoid that causes a high — than hemp. Ecuadorean law requires that cannabis have less than 1 percent THC.
“The project was born from hard times,” said Klaus Graetzer, Boutique Flowers floriculture manager and president of hemp start-up CannAndes.
“In the pandemic, the flower industry was hit hard. We saw the chance to take advantage of this new regulation,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
His 30 hectare farm slashed rose production by 37.5 percent to 15 million stems last year due to a drop in orders from the US, Europe and Russia, its main markets.
Ecuador’s total flower exports fell 8 percent last year, flower producer and export association Expoflores says.
Cannabis plants are increasingly cultivated globally for the extraction of cannabidiol (CBD), which is being researched for various medical applications and has found increased use as a relaxant.
However, CannAndes sees the greatest potential in the niche business of hemp flowers, which is smoked as a palliative for conditions such as nausea or anxiety.
Hemp flowers do not have psychotropic effects, and can be produced with much of the flower industry’s traditional infrastructure. In contrast, CBD oils require industrial machinery to separate oil from plant material.
“The idea is to get to export smokable CBD flowers to Switzerland: That’s the biggest market for this flower,” CannAndes manager Felipe Norton said. “Given the experience we have with flowers, it’s a good opportunity.”
CannAndes plans to begin exporting the product in the next two years, and it is seeking licenses from Ecuadorean authorities to sell CBD products such as creams for body care as well as teas and edible oils for chocolates and sweets.
Ecuador’s flower industry leaders remain skeptical of hemp because the value of the associated products swing sharply with shifts in consumer fads and government regulatory decisions, Expoflores president Alejandro Martinez said.
Ecuador in late 2019 legalized the imports of hemp seeds, as well as the production, marketing and export of hemp. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries has approved 46 10-year licenses for various phases of hemp development.
“We have the climate and soil conditions to do the cultivation, but it will be the demand that will dictate the level of supply,” Ecuadorian Vice Minister of Productive Development Ney Barrionuevo said. “For now, it is incipient.”
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the