'Jumping beans' craze goes flat for him after ban on serious pest

By Cynthia Loh

WHEN Mr William Tan watched a programme on the Mexican jumping bean on Arts Central six months ago, he thought he had stumbled onto the next Singaporean craze.

Fascinated by the bean that moves - thanks to the caterpillar growing inside - he ordered a shipment from the US.

After all, he reckoned, if bubble tea and luohan fish had become a craze among his countrymen, so could this.

Jumping into trouble

But he didn't know that Mexican jumping beans are banned in Singapore. And you can be fined - even jailed - for bringing them in.

It is the seed of a shrub that grows in the south-western deserts of North America.

A moth lays eggs in the flower of the plant.

A larva comes from the egg, develops inside the seed of the plant, and makes it move. Months later, a moth comes out.

The beans are banned by the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) as they pose a threat to local flora and fauna.

But Mr Tan, 22, said he did not know that.

The first year diploma student at the Singapore Institute of Management said: 'This (the bean) is educational for kids. What do they know about nature? You tell them chicken, they tell you KFC.'

And it looked like he had struck gold. His Mexican jumping bean business was started on Oct 16, and he even set up his own website, which has had thousands of hits.

He also managed to persuade several vendors in Holland Road, Bishan, Bugis, Suntec City and Orchard Cineleisure to sell his beans.

Three beans packed into a little jewel container were sold for $4.90. And they sold well.

According to sales assistant Jaslyn Ng, 18, some 50 boxes of the beans were sold in just one day from the pushcart in Bishan Junction 8 where she works full time.

She said: 'Everyone has been buying. They find it so interesting because it's weird.'

A check with another pushcart outlet at Bugis Junction showed that around 100 boxes had been sold in a week.

Miss Amanda Yap, 18, looked at them for a while, but didn't buy. Admitting she didn't know about the ban, she said: 'I've seen friends buying them before.'

Miss Belle Chan, 18, a sales assistant who had bought three boxes of the jumping beans for herself, had no idea they are banned either: 'Oh, I didn't know! I bought them about two months ago, but if I have to give them up, I will do so.'

Mrs Rebecca Wong, a 33-year-old housewife, had ordered 30 boxes at $4 each for her 6-year-old son and his friends when they celebrated his birthday about two months ago.

Jumping to conclusions

She said: 'Maybe I should go back and ask for a refund. I read on the website that the beans are completely safe, but I think we should be more careful about what the Internet says.'

Mr Tan considered his lively larva-in-a-seed a cute little pet.

But the AVA views it as a serious pest. Dr Mohd Ismail Mohd Ali, AVA's Assistant Principal Import Export Officer, said the adult insect is called the jumping bean moth.

In an e-mail sent to The New Paper, he said it 'belongs to a large family of moths; some of them are serious agricultural pests'.

According to him these include the codling moth of apple, oriental moth of peaches, grape berry moth, pea moth and so on.

'In fact the codling moth is one of the world's destructive insects and millions of dollars are spent annually on the control expenses,' he said.

Under the Control of Plants Act, the AVA said nobody is allowed to import such creatures without a permit.

Jumping into action

The AVA learned of the shipment and contacted Mr Tan about a month ago.

Mr Tan said: 'I didn't know I had to go through the AVA when I imported the jumping beans.'

He understood that the authorities in the US considered the beans harmless and showed The New Paper a document signed by a Mr Eugene Fife from the Pest Exclusion branch, California Department of Food and Agriculture.

It read: 'This can serve as the official record and pest status determination on your Mexican Jumping Bean sample... they have been determined officially to present no pest risk to agriculture or forests in this state.'

Mr Tan, who had hoped to monopolise the market in the US and Asia with his partner in the US, said he has been selling the beans in Indonesia and Malaysia without a hitch.

The AVA has informed him they are not allowed to be sold in Hong Kong and Japan.

He said: 'I'm quite ambitious, I just wanted to make a name for myself.'

He had spent about $10,000 bringing in the beans and setting up the business. Now, it may cost him as much again, if not more.

Anyone found guilty of importing pests without a licence can be fined up to $10,000 and jailed up to three years.

The AVA is still investigating his case.

Meanwhile, Mr Tan has a tough task: To get all the beans back from the vendors and the people who have bought them.


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COULD CAUSE DAMAGE TO LOCAL ENVIRONMENT

WHAT is the harm that the jumping beans can do to flora and fauna in Singapore?

According to Dr Mohd Ismail Mohd Ali, Singapore has related plants on which the emerging moth could lay eggs.

The Mexican jumping bean comes from a deciduous shrub called Sebastiana pavoniana.

Another shrub, Sapium biloculare, can also be a host plant for the insect.

Female moths which emerge from the beans after they develop have been found to survive as long as 12 days without food.

There is the potential for them to become a public nuisance and controlling these flying moths could be costly.

Mr Lim Kim Seng, executive officer with the Nature Society, agrees.

He said: 'In general, there is some caution when an alien species of plant or animal is brought in.

'With invasive species, we can't predict how they'll behave. If they find substitute plants, they'll eat and grow and cause a problem.

'Given the history of introduced species, it's possible that the moths can cause damage to the local environment beyond its five-day life span.'

·  Members of the public who have Mexican jumping beans are advised by the AVA to surrender them. Call the AVA at 6325-7625 for more information.