Bangladesh: Growth powered by urban consumers
Horticulture comprises fruits, wood, vegetables and medicinal plants while floriculture covers flowers and ornamental plants. According to the Bangladesh Plant Nursery Man Society (BPNMS), a platform of the country's nurseries, nearly 0.2 million people are directly involved in nurseries and 0.15 million farmers are now engaged in commercial horticulture and floriculture business.
The 10,200 nurseries and flower-foliage trade or export have directly or indirectly employed nearly 0.6 million people in the country, BPNMS data shows.
Md Rafiqul Hasan, deputy director at Horticulture Wing under the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said commercial floriculture has expanded to 8,500 hectares of land in 2014, which was less than 200 hectares in the 90s.
Flower and foliage farming has expanded into Jessore, Jhenidah, Magura, Rangpur, Bogra, Dhaka, Gazipur and Manikganj districts, he said.
The government had no specific policy on floriculture earlier, but the National Nursery Guideline 2008, initiated by the ministry of agriculture, gave a space of flower and ornamental plants, Mr. Hasan said. The guideline specified flowers, ornamental plants as 'horticulture crops', he added.
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