The role of floriculture in improving farmers’ income cannot be overemphasised.

The background: The liberalised seed policy introduced in the late 1980s, coupled with the 1991 reforms, paved the way for the advanced protected cultivation technology in floriculture. Since then, floriculture has been a potential money-spinner and employment-generator for farmers especially in rain-fed areas, hilly regions, and arid zones.

Further, floriculture has great scope in bio-aesthetic planning, landscaping, and gardening, apart from applications in horticultural therapy.

Comparative advantage 

India is endowed with varied and dynamic agro-climatic conditions, good quality soil and irrigation facilities conducive for floriculture, besides cheap labour. Floriculture does not require artificial lighting or heating for green house production of flowers owing to ample sunlight in India and moderate temperature during winter season. Also, India is strategically located between two major markets — Europe and East Asia. So there is enormous potential to export flowers to temperate countries during the peak winter season. As the government identified floriculture as one of the export thrust areas, and the European nations reduced import duty on floricultural products over time, it has tremendous scope for agri-preneurship.

Though the floriculture business has been growing in the world at 9 per cent per annum, India’s share in the international market is a miniscule 1 per cent. While the Netherlands and Germany are leading producers of flowers, India holds the 14th rank. The main flower growing States are Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. According to APEDA, India’s export of floriculture produce was 21,024 tonnes, valued at ₹708 crore in 2022-23.

 Chrysanthemum experience

A recent study conducted by MANAGE showed that farmers cultivating Chrysanthemum in Karnataka’s Mandya and Mysuru districts witnessed increase in their average net profit and yield by 249 per cent and 119 per cent respectively during 2018-23 Kharif period.

Also, total cultivated area of Chrysanthemum in the study area increased by 91 per cent during this period, thanks to adoption of modern and sustainable cultivation techniques and extension services offered by Green Grameen Services, an NGO promoted byMysuru-based agri-scientist Vasanth Kumar. Typical challenges of floriculture industry are: Inadequate infrastructure facilities like greenhouse/poly houses and cold chains, lack of quality consciousness among exporters, limited knowledge on advanced cultivation practices and absence of market intelligence. Besides, floriculture suffers from insufficient R&D expenditure especially on new varieties, advanced cultivation methods, post-harvest management, etc.

The way forward: International air cargo facilities may be developed at catchment areas of production by leveraging UDAAN scheme of the government. Besides, the farmers can take advantage of various schemes of National Horticulture Mission. Ramping up cold storage facilities is also vital. Institutional (micro) finance may be improved to support farmers.

Exports can be promoted through e-commerce, fairs/exhibitions, and international exposure visits.

The writer is Director, Centre for Agri-Business Management, MANAGE, Hyderabad; views expressed are personal.

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