The Pingtan Times carried out a survey on Jan 19 and found that - even though they boast a nationwide reputation - it is difficult to find locally grown daffodils at flower markets in Pingtan county, east China's Fujian province.

The newspaper concluded that most of the daffodils on the market were from the city of Zhangzhou in Fujian province.

A local flower farmer said that daffodils grown in Pingtan are sold to wholesalers from Beijing, Shanghai and also Zhangzhou.

Feng Liqiang, secretary of the Pingtan Daffodils Association, agreed with the newspaper report, saying that 200,000 daffodil bulbs out of a total of 300,000 were sold to non-local buyers.

Chen Mingshan, another flower farmer, said the lack of local daffodils is due to the fact that the flowers take a relatively long time to grow – and are also not very profitable.

Feng said that farmers can grow only a dozen daffodils in an area of several hundreds mu (15 mu = 1 hectare). It takes about three years to get a large daffodil bulb, which sells for three yuan - and small ones only bring in one yuan.

A manager of a local daffodil company said that Pingtan farmers are not interested in growing daffodils mainly because of the low return on investment and the lack of technology.

And Feng said that the farmers require more support from the government, which has not promoted the county's daffodils – and they thus do not have any sort of reputation.

But the situation is improving as authorities started paying attention to the industry last year, registering a daffodil certification mark at the State Administration of Industry and Commerce - and also approving the construction of the 3.33-hectare Pingtan Daffodil Experimental Base.

The daffodil growing base is expected to provide technical assistance to farmers to boost production and further promote Pingtan's daffodil industry, according to a manager of the company responsible for the construction of the base.

The company also said it intends to expand the area devoted to growing daffodils in the town of Ao'dong.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Niva Whyman