Floriculture Group forming

[Guest]

Forbes website mentions that:

Floriculture groups across Hawaii are forming an umbrella organization to help their nursery products compete in a global market....
...the group will be better able to take advantage of combining resources and other funding to tackle government polices, research and development while marketing on a full-time, rather than voluntary, basis.

I looked at the HFSA website and it doesn't mention anything about it.

anyone know anything about these floriculture group(s)?

-------
Today in History:
Pacific Commercial Advertiser announced that the Volcano House was open for business, 1866

[janeadams]

Damon,

It was discussed briefly at the BIAN board meeting last week, and from what I can tell, it's mostly an umbrella org. that is intended to do a lot of the stuff individual groups do, but really don't do well -- lobbying, communication about bills and regulations, new pests and invasive species, etc... From what was said, each participating group can determine to what extent they want to participate, and would save in administrative costs/duplication of efforts. In concept, I'm all for it, as I know what effort it takes for our recording secretary to keep everyone up on the latest. Also, a larger lobbying group would be very effective, especially when testimony on Oahu means someone has to cough up the airfare and take time away from their nursery to attend.

That said, it is early days yet, and we'll see how it shapes up.

Jane