Blooming business

Wengyuan, a hilly subtropical county in the northern part of Guangdong province, has seen its orchid farming sector blossom from zero to an annual 3 billion-yuan ($416.78 million) business over the past 25 years.

It supplies 60 percent of the Chinese orchid species sold in the domestic market, with orchid farms spanning 35,500 mu (2,366.67 hectares).

The industry began when Taiwan businesspeople engaged in floraculture in Guangdong learned that orchids grew well in the wild in Wengyuan, Shaoguan city, and decided to invest in orchid farms after trips to the county.

As the business expanded, locals also started investing. Orchid farming has helped lift 430 families out of poverty and provided them with stable incomes, said Wen Minlin, director of the administrative committee of the Wengyuan core area of the Guangdong (Shaoguan) Guangdong-Taiwan Agricultural Cooperation Pilot Zone.

More than 21,000 people have found jobs in the industry and per capita disposable incomes related to orchid farming are 35 percent higher than the local average, he said. The county had a population of more than 420,000 in 2022, according to household registration statistics.