Tapping State's floriculture market

Assam is home to wide-ranging naturally occurring flower species including 192 species of orchids. Despite high demand within the State for household and commercial use, commercial floriculture has not flourished in the Assam. Except for a few pockets, floriculture activities are still limited to household hobby gardening. Official estimates show that the State imports flowers worth Rs 7-8 crore annually from neighbouring State of West Bengal. Assam accounts for less than one per cent of total area under floriculture in the country while West Bengal accounts for nearly 8 per cent. For flower growers in Hajo, Guwahati city has emerged as the prime market for supplying flowers to households for daily floral offerings to deities. The supply chain, however, is unorganised and informal. Freshness and fragrance are lost as the flower traders are dependent on the time-consuming multimodal transport from farms to doorstep deliveries. They travel by bus to the city and then ferry on bicycles for home delivery in different localities. The COVID-19 pandemic had a cascading effect on flower growers and gradual restoration of normal life, the home deliveries of flowers by flower traders from Hajo in Guwahati city has resumed. The demand for flowers in large quantities for marriage for decoration as well as bridal use, business events, special day celebrations like Valentine's day is primarily met by supplies from flower markets in West Bengal. Vertical growth of Guwahati city, educational institutions, hospitals, corporate entities, hotels, and resorts across the State have generated demands for gardening and landscaping services besides pushing the demand for ornamental flowers in pots. Estimates by the Agriculture & Processed Food Products Export Development (APEDA) show that India exported 16,949.37 MT of floriculture products worth of Rs 541.61 crore to destinations around the world in 2019-20. The major Export Destinations of Indian flowers are United States, Netherland, Germany, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates. Apart from West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan have emerged as major floriculture centres in the country. Floriculture as commercial activity has gained momentum after the central government accorded it 100 per cent export-oriented status. According to APEDA, commercial floriculture has higher potential per unit area than most of the field crops and is therefore a lucrative business. Suitable climatic condition gives a natural edge to Assam compared to the major floriculture centres in rest of the country.

Lack of awareness about the huge commercial potential both internal demand and export potential are posing hurdles in making floriculture a robust economic activity in the State. Horticulture departments, Assam Agricultural University, Industries and Commerce departments, financial institutions can give a push to commercial floriculture by providing hand holding support to flower growers, traders and young entrepreneurs venturing into the floriculture business. Imparting training and support to flower growers on various aspects of floriculture management such as greenhouse structure, humidity, lighting in green houses, temperature control etc. will guide the traditional growers to adopt modern cultivation to cater to the growing market demand for quality flowers. Making information on internal demands, export markets, availability of quality seeds, technology, climatic and soil conditions available to local growers and traders is essential to encourage them expand areas under floriculture and diversifying floriculture business. Setting up cold storages along the floriculture value chains are essential as floricultural products are highly perishable and their demand is dependent on retaining the freshness from producers to wholesalers to retailers to consumers. Post-production handling forms a key component of floriculture business. State governments in the Northeast region lobbying for dedicated cargo facilities for floricultural products at the airports in the region will go a long way insupporting the entrepreneurs in floriculture sector in the region to eye the national and the export markets. This will also generate demand for floriculture as commercial cropping in the region. India focusing on improved connectivity with neighbouring countries in sub-regional architectures that include Bangladesh, Bhutan, ASEAN countries, the cargo facilities and air-connectivity with these countries from the region will boost demand for commercial floricultural products and generate livelihood and employment avenues. If these potentials can be harnessed, Guwahati can emerge as one of the major flower markets in the entire south and southeast Asia. It is hoped that the new government to be installed in May will prioritise floriculture as one of the major sectors for generating livelihood and employment. Promoting floriculture among the SHGs (Self Help Groups) can be a focussed activity for the Horticulture department. The challenge will be look at the potential beyond the lens of departmental schemes. Often the entrepreneurial dreams get lost in complex technicalities and formalities of departmental schemes. Besides simplifying the process of availing benefits extended under different government schemes, easy access to credits from banks and other financial institutions can boost floriculture activities. Assam has a huge potential to nurture the floriculture dream.