Dr Ramesh Kumar Thusoo
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.
Floriculture is increasingly regarded as a viable diversification from the traditional field crops because of higher returns per unit area and flowers are cultivated throughout year on all occasions. Though the art of growing flowers is not new to India, but large-scale commercial cultivation, protected cultivation is relatively new in India. Enormous genetic diversity, varied agro climatic conditions, versatile human resources offer India a unique scope for diversification in new avenues which were not explored to a greater extent. With the opening up of international market in the WTO regime there is a free movement of floriculture products worldwide. In this context each and every country is having equal opportunity for trade in each other’s territory. Globally, more than 140 countries are involved in cultivation of floricultural crops. Among various countries Germany continues to be the highest consumer followed by Japan. India is having a better scope in the future as there is a shift in trend towards flowers and this can be gainfully exploited by country like India with high amount of diversity in indigenous flora.
Flowers are intricately entwined in the social fabric of our nation and no function is complete without flowers. The domestic industry is growing at annual rate of 7-8% per annum. The area under flowers has crossed to 1.91 lakh hectares during 2011-12 which is concentrated mostly in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
India has exported 27,121.88 MT of floriculture products to the world for the worth of Rs. 423.46 crores in 2012-13 and Major Export Destinations include countries like USA, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and Japan.
Floriculture products mainly consist of cut flowers, pot plants, cut foliage, seeds bulbs, tubers, rooted cuttings and dried flowers or leaves. The important floricultural crops in the international cut flower trade are rose, carnation, chrysanthemum, gerbera, 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, marigold, aster, tuberose etc.
The Indian Agricultural Research Institute is a pioneer in scientific research on floricultural crops spearheaded by luminaries like Dr. B.P.Pal who laid a foundation for scientific breeding of flower crops in late 50’s and early 60’s. Lot of research programmes on crop improvement using conventional and biotechnology tools, production in open and protected environments, technology dissemination for the benefit of farming fraternity is in its continuity through out India and many experts in collaboration with farming community are progressing to achieve the goals in the coming years , and will contribute a lot towards the farming and scientific development in field of floriculture in India.
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