Floral production up by 15 percent
Every day, about five tonnes of flowers are exported from the state
By : purnima sah
Update: 2015-08-28 07:17 GMT
COIMBATORE: Tamil Nadu’s floral farms have produced 15 per cent more flowers in the last eight months this year. Tamil Nadu’s jasmine, marigolds, roses and lotuses are spreading fragrance across the world. Every day, about five tonnes of flowers are exported from the state to Singapore, Malaysia, USA and Saudi Arabia.
About 70 per cent of the exported flowers are the gundu malli or the jasmine of Madurai fame and the remaining are marigolds, roses, lotuses and thulasi leaves. Three years ago, only about 800 kg of flowers were exported from Coimbatore, but now it has nearly tripled to 2,100 kg every day.
Flowers worth '250 crore are being exported from Tamil Nadu every year, which is a whopping 70 per cent share of the floral exports from India. Tamil Nadu produces three varieties of jasmine flowers, but the Madurai gundu malli, which is cultivated in Madurai, Sathyamangalam, Dindigul and Tiruchy, is the hot favourite among the importers.
“The demand for Tamil Nadu flowers is mainly from the NRIs. They are exported either as flower buds, strung flowers or garlands. We have trained the flower growers in the art of refrigerated packaging technology,” said Dr M. Kannan, professor and head of the department of floriculture and landscaping.
In 2013-14, Tamil Nadu produced 2,88,640 tonnes of flowers over floral swathe of 32,000 hectares. This year, the production has increased by 15 per cent, says K. Sethumadhavan, an exporter of fresh flowers.With flower cultivation fetching better returns, more and more farmers are getting into floriculture, says Dr Kannan.
Last year Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) introduced an export packaging technology and the farmers were given hands-on training.