How U.S. Authorities Became Clueless About the "Trakuon" For Years?

By Kathleen Hubert

Exclusive to Khmerization

Trakuon, which is known as water spinach in the United States, is a hardy plant that can grown nearly anywhere it lands, provided the weather's warm enough. In parts of Florida it completely choked waterways, proving resistant to all but the strongest herbicides. However, there are two other things about Trakuon that people in the United States don't really know. Number one, that it's a major part of a big number of dishes in Asian cuisine, and number two, that it is a massive industry.

Daniel Kramer

Like Yin Vuth, most farmers exclusively grow water spinach inside greenhouses, which can become suffocatingly hot in the middle of the day, reaching around 120 degrees.

How Did That Happen?

Well, because this water spinach is considered a nuisance or an invasive species, many states have outlawed growing and cultivating it. However, many other states have done no such thing, and others have simple issued licenses for it. In Texas you can grow this plant with a permit. And as a result there are communities of people, arranged in little villages, whose only source of income is to grow and ship this plant. At .30 to .90 a pound, with bales of 30 pounds being shipped out on trucks, that are one major cash crop.

You see, it's just like anything else. The laws of supply and demand require that the less of a product there is, or the harder it is to get, the more expensive it becomes. And if you live in a state where no one can grow this plant, but you still need it for your cuisine, then you have to pay the prices that are required due to it coming in from far away. Additionally, you have 5 days between when the plant is cut and when it goes bad, adding a time factor into the equation for how much money can be charged for it.

Why Has the Government Not Copped to This?

Trakuon has, for the most part, been thought of as something quaint to Asian culture by U.S. authorities. As such there haven't really been investigations into what monies could be made by charging for growing licenses, transportation fees, etc. It's considered a foreign nuisance, and without a proper understanding of the cultures that are using these plants, how important they are will never really dawn on the U.S. government. Yet one more missed opportunity for revenue and cultural understanding at some level.

However, businesses and corporations haven't missed the implications at all. They're taking it in stride, and doing their best to provide a plant that people want to buy and that people need to use in order to properly prepare their food. While there have been violations, such as transporting this plant into a state where it's been banned by law, generally the corporations are making a killing off this product. And some of the newer generation are getting smart, using modern machinery to harvest and plant, ensuring bigger crops and bigger profits for all.

Kathleen Hubert is a blogger who writes on a variety of different sites. Check out more of her work at http://modularhomes.org/">modularhomes.org

and http://www.ledtv.org/">ledtv.org.