The annual Taipei Orchids Festival opens at the city's Garden Mall today, which showcases various species of exceptional beauty. Since orchid is also listed on the ECFA's early harvest list, the product will be exported to China tariff-free starting next January. But for many Taiwanese farmers, this isn't necessarily good news. Our following story explains why.

The beautiful monopodial orchid is commonly called Foxtail Orchids because of their long thin densely packed inflorescences.

One pot of which costs as much as 2 million NTD.

With sweetly fragrant blooms, it is one of the most popular varieties of orchids in Taiwan.

Most of the butterfly orchids have many flower buds and long florescence, which lasts from one to three months.

It is not easy to decorate the orchids in the show too.

The theme called "Safe and Peace" with a red veil and apple as accessories is winning the champion-

Starting from January first next year, the tariff of these orchids will be zero when sold to China. But this is not too much of a good news to flower farmers, because their counterparts in China have been copying Taiwan's orchid growing techniques secretly, which has led to a huge financial loss to flower farmers in Taiwan.

While Taiwanese flower farmers have dedicated to cultivating different orchid varieties, without the cross-strait patent protection, the efforts and money spent for research and development would be in vain.