Something special taking root: orchid deal helps University of Maryland Eastern Shore generate revenue, expand academic programs and foster regional economic growth

Black Issues in Higher Education, Sept 23, 2004 by Crystal L. Keels

PRINCESS ANNE, MD.

Two hours east of Washington, D.C., across the Chesapeake Bay bridge, through rural Maryland past produce stands loaded with ripe peaches, plums and watermelons from nearby farms, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), a historically Black land-grant institution, is abuzz with the development of an industry new to the region.

Thousands of orchids in various sizes and vivid hues of yellow, pink, purple and white are blooming inside the 2.5-acre $4 million UMES hydroponics greenhouse facility. And some of these plants imported from China are still in nascent stages with thick green leaves that have yet to flower. Eventually, imported orchids worth $2 million--shipped from China in groups of 200,000--will grow in the greenhouse.

"This is a brand new industry for Maryland, for the Eastern Shore," says Dr. Thelma B. Thompson, president of UMES. Thompson says that one of the main advantages of the partnership between the school and the U.S. Orchid Laboratory & Nursery Inc. is that it is "in the early beginnings (of the enterprise) and not competing with anyone else." These increasingly popular flowers are grown in the United States primarily in Hawaii, California and Florida.

The recent pairing between UMES and U.S. Orchid, the American arm of Jet Green Horticulture in Beijing, China, will serve as an additional revenue stream for the university, help expand its academic program and provide economic opportunities for the surrounding Eastern Shore region.

And as all 30,000 of the orchids blossom, so do short- and long-term plans to fulfill the five-year lease agreement Thompson signed in April with Dr. John Hou, president of U.S. Orchid.

The orchid program will take advantage of a network model for growers that has already proven successful for the university in a previous contract agreement with Maryland-based Bell Nursery, which vacated the premises at the end of its five-year contract with the university. The network model developed at UMES provided an ample supply of plants and flowers for Bell Nursery, and can be adapted to growing vegetables and producing poultry, too, explains Daniel Kuennen, director of the UMES Rural Development Center. The Bell Nursery/UMES collaboration resulted in a network of more than 25 growers.

"This program helps the whole region," Kuennen says.

"The network brings expertise that would not normally be available to small farmers so they can go ahead and be farmers," says Dr. Tom Handwerker, horticulturalist and UMES officer of technology deployment who, along with Kuennen, created and implemented the grower network system. The grower network system is designed to "deploy technology to small farmers," who are then able to develop alternative crops for themselves and because of the network don't have to bother with the marketing end of the process, Handwerker says. "Our original partner, Bell, was able to use this concept to begin to market to Home Depot," he adds. "The network concept mitigates the risk for both the major marketer and the small farmer," says Handwerker, who is referred to by his LIMES colleagues as the "architect of the greenhouse."

The network grower model, in combination with the 20 years of technological and marketing expertise U.S. Orchid brings, positions UMES as the primary provider on the East Coast for these exotic plants that can range in cost from $15 to $4,000 for rarer varieties. Over time, the infrastructure of grower/marketer will generate enough product for the university and the region to become globally competitive in orchid production.

"Estimates of the university's revenue stream from the fully deployed network and tissue facility may exceed a half a million dollars per year," Handwerker explains. He adds that at this point in the project, U.S. Orchid leases the UMES greenhouse for approximately $150,000 a year and participates as a collaborator on research grants submitted by the university.

In addition to generating additonal revenue for UMES, the program simultaneously provides economic and diversification opportunities for communities throughout parts of Maryland and Delaware.

"The impact it's going to have throughout the region is going to be phenomenal. UMES is proud to be a part of it in its infant stages," Kuennen says.

'MOM OF MILLIONS'

One of the major long-term goals of the orchid project is to establish a tissue culture laboratory on campus, Kuennen says. UMES has applied for funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to construct a $5-million lab on campus.

Tissue culture, Handwerker explains, involves the creation of a "clean, identical plant" that is propagated by "taking a small undifferentiated group of cells from a single mom plant" and then dividing them. "Each cell initiates an identical plant so one plant becomes the mom of millions," Handwerker says.

Once the tissue culture lab is in place, imports from China will cease and orchids will be propagated at UMES. Citing the troubling trend of American jobs moving overseas, Handwerker notes that the UMES/U.S. Orchid partnership has an additional, unusual benefit.