CALIFORNIA GROWERS LOSING FLOWER WAR

Pact Lifted Tariffs On Latin America

- -- A trade pact designed to encourage Latin American cocaine growers to
switch to flowers by forgiving tariffs is driving carnation, chrysanthemum
and rose growers out of business in the nation's flower capital.

Since the Andean Trade Protection Act went into effect in 1992, Colombia
and Ecuador have become flower giants while California is losing growers
and greenhouses at staggering rates.

What's most upsetting to growers here is that the drug tide from overseas
hasn't, in their eyes, abated at all.

``It's been a tough road. We're changing varieties. We're changing over to
other crops. And we need to make those changes quicker now,'' said Mark
Yamaguchi, a third-generation farmer in Salinas who has stuck with roses
but given up on carnations.

``The concession was they were supposed to stop producing drugs and replace
them with a legitimate crop,'' he added. ``Now the government is actually
helping them bring in that legal product -- and they're still bringing in
the drugs.''

Even before the Andean pact was passed, Latin American countries, and
Colombia in particular, were top rivals for flower growers in the United
States. Labor costs are cheaper, and pesticide regulation is lax compared
with U.S. standards. On top of that, two other major flower markets, Japan
and Europe, have kept the United States out with high tariffs and tough
port inspections.

In the first six years after flower tariffs were suspended, nearly one in
two California growers disappeared, dropping from 943 in 1992 to 475 last
year, according to the California Floral Council. Colombia and Ecuador,
meanwhile, are ruling the marketplace for roses, chrysanthemums and
carnations, historically the biggest sellers in the United States, Murphy
said.

The loss of commercial greenhouses mirrors the trend, with carnations
taking the biggest hit. Space dropped from 17.2 million square feet in 1992
to 5.4 million square feet last year, said Will Carlson, executive director
of the National Floral Trade Council in Michigan.

Colombian imports, meanwhile, are blossoming. From 1991 to 1995, pom pom
chrysanthemums from Colombia nearly tripled from 181 million blooms to 535
million; carnations increased from 639 million blooms to 822 million; and
roses of all varieties increased from 331 million blooms to 513 million.

Carlson and other trade representatives are trying, with limited success,
to get Congress to understand that the domestic flower industry has become
the unintended casualty of the war on drugs.

``We went to Congress and said `What gives? Drugs are still coming in, and
our guys are going out of business. This apparently is not working,' ''
Carlson said.

Citing national security, the State Department declined to take action,
Carlson said, adding that the government is still preoccupied with the drug
problem.

``They just basically want to fight the drug war and don't want to hear
about flowers,'' he said.