Author：Tai, Ting-En, Director of Floriculture Research Center, Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan
The domestic-export sales ratio of Taiwanese Oncidium is 7 to 3 or even 6 to 4, and 90% of the overall export sales volume goes to Japan, which shows an over-reliance on the demand of Japanese market. Flower farmers attempted to develop the worldwide markets beyond Japan and once earned the orders from Australia, America, Middle East countries, Hong Kong and Singapore, etc. However, sales were made by irregular orders from time to time with small quantities. Farmers have been trying to knock on the door of European market as well but failed. Although Taiwan Oncidium is with great competitive advantages in the international market, the cultivating ways in Taiwan are though quite affected by the climate resulting in highly-concentrated flower production and this major issue causes the impossibility in forecasting the production to meet the market demand. Moreover, there has been no efficient ways to stabilize the flower quality and to assure the life period of flower arrangement in vase. These issues have led to a harsh challenge faced by the traditional oncidium culture management.
In order to maintain the competitive advantages of Taiwan Oncidium in this industry, Floriculture Research Center integrates the R&D energy in conjunctions with domestic universities and the technology of informatic service providers to utilize technologies of IoT monitoring system, AI image monitoring and Big Data analysis to assist flower farmers for next improvements. These improvements include building up the production standard for Oncidium, implementation of production management, precise output forecast and normalizing quality, establishing a supply chain of steady quality and quantity as well as obtaining environmental management system certification.
When any quality issue is found for Oncidium sent to foreign auction market, flower traders can upload the QR Code scanned from the packing box via “Digital Shipping Mark System” and thus, flower traders can rapidly review the traceability (production history) and tracking the details of each handling step before delivery for responding to customers' claims in time. In addition, the cold chain is vital to the export of flowers. A stable and low temperature environment must be sustained for the whole delivery chain. In order to monitor and track the temperature and humidity during the delivery process, traders perform sampling to each batch of flowers by placing a thermo-hygrometer data logger (temperature & humidity recorder) and will have the auction partners download the recorded data by USB for monitoring. The actual operation of this process is however with difficulties. As a result, Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) makes use of the built-in Bluetooth transmission function of the thermo-hygrometer data logger, and the auction partners needs simply scan the QR Code, then the recorded tempearture and humidity data together with shipping information will be uploaded to the Cloud. By doing this way, flower traders or farmers can check and identify the data easily. Furthermore, the R&D Group even utilize e-SIM applied for the logistic temperature and humidity monitor to proceed more completely tracking. This e-SIM logistic temperature and humidity monitor is able to upload recorded data anytime and anywhere as long as the signal from cell site is captured. Even there is no luck with the cell-site signals all the way delivery, auction partners need just open the box to check the monitor, and the e-SIM temperature and humidity monitor with built-in light sensor will capture signals from cell site. Hence, the complete recorded data of temperature and humidity during the delivery through can be uploaded to the Cloud immediately.
