Floriculture sector in India: current status and export potential

Abstract

Floriculture provides tremendous scope and opportunities and has become a major ingredient of modern lifestyle. There has been a transition in the floriculture industry as a commercial business venture with high market value and real opportunities. This research study examines the recent trends in area, production and trade of floriculture in India and at international level. It also tries to understand the dynamics of export performance and major lacunae existing in floriculture industry. Almost 145 countries are involved across the globe in this sector with western countries like Netherlands, USA, Columbia and Italy as leading growers and traders. Netherlands continues to be the global master of floriculture trade with 43.7% of total world exports during 2018. There has also been a steady growth of demand and production in Asian countries like India, China, Thailand, Japan, Sri Lanka, etc. India is the second largest flower growing country after China and is at 14th position in exporting floriculture products. However, India’s percentage share in global floriculture exports is only 0.40% in 2018 which might be due to lacunae in maintaining international quality standards, lack of integrated cold chain man-agement and unorganised market and distribution channels.