Floriculture scenario in India

Abstract

Floriculture is an age old farming activity in India having immense potential for generating gainful self-employment among\rsmall and marginal farmers. A constant increase in demand for cut flowers has made floriculture as one of the important\rcommercial trades in Indian agriculture (Pawar and Phalke, 2011). Emphasis has been shifted from traditional flowers to cut\rflowers for domestic as well as export purposes. In the recent years it has emerged as a profitable agri-business in India. The\rglobal floriculture industry with an investment of about US$ 40 billion is growing at an annual rate of 10 to 12 per cent. The\rUSA, Japan, Western Europe are the major markets for the flowers. India is the second largest producer of flowers after China\r(Pawar and Pawar, 2001). The study is completely based on secondary data collected from various official websites like\rAPEDA (Agriculture Produce Export Development Authority) and DGCIS (Annual Export report). The results of the study\rshowed that in terms of quantity of flowers exported to Germany showed highest positive significant growth of 12.61 per cent,\rfollowed by UK (10.38 %) and USA (0.85 %). In terms of value UK registered a growth of 15.99 per cent followed by Germany\r(15.54%), USA (9.80 %), Netherlands (8.65 %) and Japan. It was also revealed that the USA was one of the most stable markets\ramong the major importers of flowers from India. It is concluded from the study that the demand for Indian flowers is\rincreasing rapidly. So the export promotion council and APEDA have to take major promotion steps to advance the demand\rand supply of Indian flowers.