Floriculture was considered to be a sunrise sector. It saw a flurry of activity in the 1990s in India along with other industries like information technology and pharmaceutical. It is a capital-intensive business and while the fortunes of the industry haven't been that very rosy, the Indian floriculture industry has managed to remain a force to reckon with globally. Christmas, New Year, and Valentine's Day are three key events every year when there is good demand for flowers, particularly red roses. However, due to pandemics and other factors, the Indian floriculture industry has been badly impacted.
"Our biggest challenge has been the specter of rising air freight. Over the last one-year air freight has risen by an overwhelming 200 per cent making rose exports from India uncompetitive globally," complains Bollapally Srikanth, director of the South India Floriculture Association (SIFA), an umbrella organization representing floriculturists. Cut flowers have a very limited shelf-life and have to be necessarily shipped by air.
Typically, India would have exported around 10 to 15 million stems of red roses ahead of Valentine's Day. The realization per stem would be in the range of ₹25-30 but the profit margin has clearly evaporated with the prevailing high airfreight.
Srikanth says that costs apart, the availability of cargo freighters from Bengaluru to key markets in Europe have come down post the outbreak of the pandemic. Unfortunately, there is no air freight subsidy too which is being provided to the exporters. Floriculture, like many other contact-intensive sectors, has been badly hit thanks to the pandemic. "The second wave was brutal for us. Daily flower arrivals had fallen to about three lakh stems though this year volumes have risen. We are currently doing about five lakh stems," said a source with the International Flower Auction Centre, Bengaluru (IFAB). IFAB is the leading auction center where registered buyers offer their wares to be sold.
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