Biz Boom With Flower Power

FLORICULTURE: WITH AROUND 35 PER CENT MARKET SHARE, PUNE REGION BETS ON DOMESTIC MARKET TO BETTER GROWTH

Pune, December 26: By: aban Gupta Pune News Line

AFTER giving Bangalore stiff competition in the IT arena, Pune is slowly catching up with its illustrious peer in another business segment: Floriculture. Having garnered around 35 per cent of the market share, second only to Bangalore region’s 45 per cent, Pune’s floriculturists are on the growth path again.
“Earlier, there was lack of good manpower to implement the technological know-how of Israeli mode of farming and it was also export oriented. Now, we have a strong domestic market to fall back on,” Avinash Rangnekar, an agriculturist for 25 years and managing director of Rs 2-crore Ace Agro, said.

Other With Rs 300 crore domestic market for cut flowers and another Rs 100 crore in exports, according to the State Bank of India (SBI) that does bulk of the funding for floriculture units in the district, other floriculturists share Rangnekar’s optimism.

The advantage, according to Rangnekar, is cheap labour, buoyant domestic market and strong support from the government and financial institutions. While Israeli firms shell out $1,200 (around Rs 54,000) per month to an immigrant worker, floriculturists at Talegaon pay Rs 1,800 per month for a female worker and Rs 2,700 for a male worker. This is because Israel doesn’t get local people to work on its farms and it is immigrant workforce mainly from Thailand who works on their land.

Though the path is not rosy with Indian floriculturists facing problems like lack of capital, proper processing centres and distribution network, they are trying to overcome these hurdles by tying up with European marketing agencies and suppliers, according to Protech Infrastructural Services Ltd managing director Mohan M Riswadkar.
It is mainly roses, carnations and gerberas that constitute the bulk of the exports to France, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and West Asia. India’s share in global floriculture market is at an abysmally low 0.4 per cent and country’s exports are growing only at 7 per cent as compared to 10 per cent global growth.

For instance, at Talegaon Floriculture Park, though there is a provision for 110 units, only 45 have been set up.

But there is a sliver lining with the National Horticulture Institute imparting training at Talegaon, Mitcon providing consultancy services and a proposed processing centre coming up at Vashi, floriculturists in the region are hopeful of increasing their growth rate to 30 per cent from the current 25 per cent level and put Pune and the country on the global floriculture map.