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Fresh and fragrant aren't their life
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They travel 20 to 30 km every day, carrying loads of fresh flowers to lend fragrance to many a life though they live in stench and filth.
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Farmers busy segregating the flowers
For Cheemayya, a ryot, life has not been a bed of roses, though he deals with the cultivation and selling of flowers. Hailing from a village called Konraspeta in the Anandapuram mandal, he has been raising 'kanakambaralu' and jasmine, the two most popular flowers in Andhra Pradesh, on an acre of land that he inherited.
Why did he opt for growing flowers instead of food grains? "The land is to small to cultivate any other crop and neither the soil is that fertile. Seeing others, I also started to plant and nourish these flower plants. Moreover, the breeds that I grow are almost free from regular maintenance and they yield throughout the year" he said. What is his earning?
Poignantly Cheemayya replied: "For me life is on a daily basis. I am barely able to meet both the ends. My earnings fluctuate from Rs.20 to Rs.60 a day, and I have to maintain a family of six."
Well that's the life of many other farmers who converge every day at the Anandapuram junction to sell their produce, lending sweet fragrance to many a life despite they live in stench and filth.
Anandapuram is more known to people of Vizag as one of the transit point on the Chennai- Kolkata NH 5 route, but only a few are aware that there exists a wholesale flower market since the last few decades and that most of the flowers we see with city florists come from there.
This market that was controlled by one middleman a decade ago is today an informal Rytu Bazaar. Today we can see farmers and middlemen converging on the scene by 6 a.m. and active trading goes on till 10 a.m.
Farmers and middlemen travel 20 to 30 km. everyday from 30 odd villages to the point bringing with them lilies, jasmines, different varieties of roses, kanakambaralus, champak and many other seasonal flowers.
"Visakhapatnam, Gajuwaka and Anakapalle are our main retail markets. Some retailers come to us directly or engage us to deliver the goods to them," says Babu Rao, a middleman, who is into this business for almost a decade now. Most of the people present there opine in similar veins that the market condition of Visakhapatnam dictates the pricing factor over here. If there is a special occasion like the visit of any political dignitary or when flowers are used to decorate big podiums the prices go up depending on the demand.
The market also looks healthy throughout the marriage season. The price of jasmine normally varies between Rs.60 and Rs.80 a kg. but goes up to Rs. 250; similarly, kanakambaralu sold around Rs.100 a kg., Shoots up to Rs.400. A few hybrid flowers like the roses and champak are sold on piece basis. The same is sold by the retailers in the city at thrice the price, snatching most of the cream of the produce.
The market is at its peak during Pongal, when per-day turnover goes up to Rs.5 lakhs compared to Rs. 1 lakh on a normal day.
Brisk trading in progress.
The Anandapuram market is not limited to its neighbouring villages but flowers like the roses, especially the hybrid ones like Jerbros and Coronation, are imported from Kadiam, the famous nursery near Rajahmundry, and also from Bangalore. You would be surprised to find cultivators from Simhachalam there, selling their variety of Champak and other hill breeds.
According to Vijay Kumar, a middleman, "the demand for flowers has increased of late. Nowadays, a bouquet has become a tradition for all functions, be it an anniversary, birthday, wedding function or just for paying courtesies." He also adds with a little pun that "even reefs have added up to the traditional garlands, hence it is flowers and flowers all the way."
With the development of every business, it attracts its own problems. And the same applies to this flower bazaar also. Nothing goes on in an organised format, though an organised Rythu Bazaar substitutes the same place in the evening. May be, if they are taken into the folds of one of the many schemes that the State Government has launched, the farmers would see the light of the day.
Sumit Bhattacharjee
Photos: C. V. Subrahmanyam
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