Start a Floriculture Business

  




(211). Start a Floriculture Business


India today is in a unique position to grow a large number of flowers, including temperate flowers in high altitude states. In India, we can now cultivate a wider variety on a commercial basis – an impressive range — of carnation, gerbera, lilium, orchids, anthurium and many others. Government of India has identified floriculture as a sunrise industry and accorded it 100% export oriented status. Owing to steady increase in demand of flower floriculture has become one of the important Commercial trades in Agriculture. Hence commercial floriculture has emerged as hi-tech activity-taking place under controlled climatic conditions inside greenhouse. Floriculture in India, is being viewed as a high growth Industry. Commercial floriculture is becoming important from the export angle. The liberalization of industrial and trade policies paved the way for development of export-oriented production of cut flowers. The new seed policy had already made it feasible to import planting material of international varieties. It has been found that commercial floriculture has higher potential per unit area than most of the field crops and is therefore a lucrative business. Indian floriculture industry has been shifting from traditional flowers to cut flowers for export purposes. The liberalized economy has given an impetus to the Indian entrepreneurs for establishing export oriented floriculture units under controlled climatic conditions.




Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), is responsible for export promotion and development of floriculture in India, you can visit - www.apeda.gov.in/ for more details..

Varieties:
Floriculture products mainly consist of cut flowers, pot plants, cut foilage, seeds bulbs, tubers, rooted cuttings and dried flowers or leaves. The important floricultural crops in the international cut flower trade are rose, carnation, chrysanthemum, gargera, gladiolus, gypsophila, liastris, nerine, orchids, archilea, anthuriu, tulip, and lilies. Floriculture crops like gerberas, carnation, etc. are grown in green houses. The open field crops are chrysanthemum, roses, gaillardia, lily marygold, aster, tuberose etc.

               
Areas of Cultivation:
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh , Haryana, Tamil Nadu , Rajasthan , West Bengal have emerged as major floriculture centers .

India Facts and Figures:
About 160.7 thousand ha area was under Cultivation in floriculture in 2007-08. Production of flowers are estimated to be 870.4 Mt of loose flowers and 43417.5 million (numbers) of cut flowers in 2007-08 .

Exports:
India’s export of Floriculture has been increased from Rs. 340.14 Crores in 2007-08 to Rs. 368.81 Crores in 2008-09 .
Major Export Destinations (2008-09): USA, Netherland, UK, Germany, Japan

Individual Sub – Products :
Bulbs, Tubers , Tuberous Roots Plant For Tissue Culture
Bulbs Horticultural Flowering Plants
Chicory plants Other Live Plants
Other Bulb/Tubers Live Mushrooms Spawn
Unrooted Cuttings Cut Flowers For Bouquet’s / Fresh
Edible Fruit Trees Grafted or Not Other Cut Flowers For Bouquet’s
Cactus Moosses & Lichens For Bouquet Fresh
Rhododendrons (Grafted Or Not) Other Foliages / Buds For Bouquet Fresh
Roses Grafted Or Not Foliages/ Branch /

Currently, flower trade has attracted the largest demand from an estimated 300 million middle-class flower-loving people with consumption in the cities and major towns at 40 per cent per annum. Flower retail shops have mushroomed all over the place from major metros to market shops and flower boutiques. Further the supermarket/hypermarket retail chains have fueled the growth in the consumption. Cashing in on this trend, the Minister of State for Commerce also feels that floriculture is all about creating new employment opportunities in far flung areas - rather than talking about Dollars, the focus should be on a million jobs!

Floriculture activity has been traditionally attracting newer participants. However, only alert market participants have been witnessing success, as the product is highly perishable and vulnerable to quality parameters, and price fluctuations including intra-day price fluctuations. Productivity is a crucial aspect in this industry. Hence, successful producers have been investing in more labour-saving techniques in order to continue making profits. Quality is of paramount importance in the international trade of floriculture products. Producers, thus, need to conform to stringent phyto-sanitary requirements and must ensure that their produce is free from disease and that it is carefully treated once harvested. Further, consumers are becoming better informed and socially and environmentally conscious leading to higher demands on service guarantees, corporate responsibility related to flowers sold, and increasing number of codes of conduct becoming prominent in the flower trade such as the Dutch milieu programma sierteelt (MPS), Flower Labelling Programme (FLP), Fair Flower and Fair Plants label (FFP), etc. To guarantee a minimum number of days of vase life supermarkets and other competitors demand reduction in supply lead time.




Floriculture marketing is also undergoing significant changes. As supermarkets are more focused on maximising volumes and efficiency in logistics, there is a little room for tailor-made products or delicate flowers and plants that cannot be handled in standard systems. This has been giving rise to a growing trade channel and opportunity of specialised florists and products in the floriculture markets, such as that of weddings, funerals, corporate events, and for offering exclusivity and creativity. A development that is to surely change the floriculture industry is the emergence of the online sales channel - a marketing channel that is steadily growing in the recent years with increasing urbanisation, and a culture of 'saying it with flowers'.
Many small units have been facing problems due to uneconomic returns and high overheads leading to reorganization and restructuring of product portfolios by entrepreneurs, which has been considerable during the recent economic slowdown. However, there is ample scope for even small and marginal entrepreneurs to exploit the global demand of flowers with improvements in quality of planting material, infrastructure, training programmes in production, harvesting and post-harvest management techniques, product diversification, improving product availability and quality, and backed by adequate marketing support.