The Hindu Business Line : Fila Rozil sees big money in floriculture

THE country has over 2,000 varieties of flowers and yet India has not made a mark in the international scene owing to lack of required stem length and vase life of flowers, says Mr Firoz Poonawala, Managing Director, Fila Rozil Exports Private Ltd. Yet another reason he cites is that the floral varieties are neither advertised nor branded.

To overcome this problem, Mr Firoz said Fila Rozil has set up a research and development centre in Maval at an investment of Rs 50 lakh, which went on stream a year ago. This R&D centre caters to 48 different varieties of plants and is now currently exporting Iceberg and Cherry lady in the roses category. About 90 per cent is being exported while the remaining 10 per cent rests within the centre as it cannot be sold in the domestic market. "It is easy to make a budwood from this and replicate,'' he pointed out.

The next step is to export Avalanche and Bugati, again in the rose category to Japan, Australia, Netherlands and Germany. The exports are expected to begin by September 2004 and the company is targeting sales of 24 lakh stems to these countries. "These would bring in revenues close to Rs 25 per stem and we are growing about 60,000 stems in both the categories,'' he said.

He said the floriculture business is estimated to the tune of $20 billion and expanding at the rate of 16 per cent per annum. India, which has about 150 surviving floriculture units, of which 15 are in Maval in Maharashtra. The contribution from the domestic market was about 1.5 per cent.

Mr Firoz said to cater to the international market, the R&D centre is also experimenting methods by which a farmer could utilise the farm space available in a better manner. These included three ways - the first is to check the design of the greenhouse and reduce the cost by using polythene, reducing the weight of the steel and height. The cost reduction would be close to 60 per cent, he said.

He noted that the path around the plants have also been reduced from 90 cm to 50 cm so that the number of plants that can be grown could be increased from seven per sq m to 11 per sq m.

He said Fila Rozil has tied up with six global breeders for Kordes (Germany), Lex, Spek Rozen and Interplant (all from Netherlands), Franko Roses (New Zealand), and Jackson and Perkins (the US).

Fila Rozil are the facilitators between these breeders and the domestic growers. The company speaks on their behalf to foreign breeders for special facilities such as paying the licence fees over a period of two to three years or arrange in on the basis of `pay as you earn'.

Mr Firoz said plans are also afoot to shift the R&D centre to Talegaon, where the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is setting up a world-class floriculture park. The park is expected to begin operations by the end of the current calendar year and the investment that has gone is about Rs 200 crore. He added that the only request from Fila Rozil is to have a `single window policy' to help the farmers so that they do not have to "run around different departments to get clearance for the same thing.''