All is not rosy for flower growers

With few buyers and prices plummeting, some prefer to leave the crops unplucked in farms

Flower cultivation had been giving an assured monthly income to growers, but since lockdown/curfew has been imposed more than a month ago in Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, everything has not been rosy with the business.

The sale of fresh flowers is traditionally an afternoon/evening affair, but the 12 noon to 6 a.m. curfew has left a small window for business when only small quantities are being bought, mainly for puja.

A fact-check in the Venkatampalli and Nadimidoddi villages of Narpala mandal in Anantapur district reveals there are no takers for the women’s favourite and fast-moving ‘kanakambaram’ (Crossandra infundibuliform - firecracker flower) that commands ₹600 a kg in any season and goes up to even ₹2,000 a kg during the wedding season and festivals. Very few businessmen are said to be lifting the stocks.

Not worth labour cost

The district, that boasts of the highest acreage for firecracker flowers grown area in Andhra Pradesh (2,330 hectares) with 1,859 farmers depending on it, is finding it difficult to sell its produce with the Bengaluru market totally closed and not much being sold in the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh markets. Many farmers have left the flowers unplucked considering it not worth even the cost of labour. Small quantities are being taken by regular traders from local markets offering a pittance. In Kurnool too 903 farmers commercially grow the flowers in 527 hectares in 27 villages.

White tuberose again is grown in a significant area – 431 hectares on a par with YSR Kadapa district (468 ha) – and chrysanthemums of all colours are grown under polyhouses catering to the decoration and other garland-making business. Even these growers are finding it difficult to sell their produce with prices nosediving for the past one month. “While white chrysanthemums used to command close to ₹600 a kg, they are being offered now only for ₹50 a kg,” says Prasad, a farmer in Nadimidoddi, who grows them in a seven-acre polyhouse.

Anil Kumar of Venkatampalli grows tuberose in three acres. It used to fetch him ₹50 a kg, with his plot yielding 20 kg a day going up to 50 kg in peak season. Now there are no bulk buyers for the flowers and hence he does not pluck them any more and waits for the demand to improve after lockdown is lifted.