From being a small-scale industry to being a major player in the export market, from a cultivation area of 53,000 hectares in 1993-94 to 103,000 hectares in 2001-02, from an export market of Rs 18.83 crore in 1993-94 to Rs 305 crore in 2005-06, the floriculture industry in India is certainly blossoming. Industry insiders are hoping to drive home the fact to international traders next week, when Delhi hosts the International Flora Expo.

While traditionalists may decry the western practice of “saying it with flowers”, the floriculture community—including farmers, nurserymen, exporters and researchers—says flower consumption in the country has gone up by 40 per cent per annum for the past two years. According to the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), the fallout is the expansion in area under cultivation, from 53,000 hectares to 103,000 hectares in less than a decade.

“Flower varieties, too, have changed. Earlier, local markets traded in fresh cut flowers like rose, tuberose and gladiolus and loose flowers like marigold, jasmine, chrysanthemum, crossandra and aster. Nowadays, farmed flowers include carnation, gerbera, lilium, orchids, anthurium etc,” says Navneesh Sharma, deputy GM of APEDA.

Apart from experimenting with the plethora of climatic conditions that allow all kinds of flowers to be grown, the boom has also nurtured employment in economically backward pockets of the country. But the biggest leap has been in the export sector. According to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), the flower export market was worth about Rs 18.83 crore in 1993-94; in 2005-06, it stood at Rs 305 crore.

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