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Pune: Ahead of V-Day, rose sellers, farmers expecting good returns
With Valentine’s Day just a day away, florists are doing brisk business with both rose- sellers and farmers expecting good returns this season
With Valentine’s Day just a day away, florists are doing brisk business with both rose- sellers and farmers expecting good returns this season.
Sagar Bhosale, a wholesaler of natural flowers in Market Yard, said, “This time around, rose shortage is not expected as roses are available in large numbers in the wholesale market. The demand for roses has increased since last week.” Retail sellers of roses too are doing good business with people giving bulk orders.
Ashfaq Chini, who has a flower shop on Jungli Maharaj Road, said, “There is high demand for roses of different colours along with red roses. Generally, many people are ordering bunches of flowers instead of one or two flowers.”
Mukim Shaikh, a florist from M G road Camp, said, “We have received very good quality roses this time from Maval. The demand for rose bouquets is higher than last year.”
In Pune district, the Maval region produces the highest number of roses. Many farmers have built greenhouses for rose farming and nearly 1,000 hectares of land is under rose cultivation. Greenhouse farming is a unique practice of growing crops within sheltered structures covered by transparent or translucent material. The main purpose of these greenhouses is to provide favourable growing conditions and protect the crops from unfavourable weather and pests.
Mukund Thakar, head of the Pavna Phulotpadan Sangh and a rose cultivator from Maval, said, “For the second year in a row, rose farmers are expecting good business. Around 1.5 crore roses are expected to be sold from the Maval region (both in the local and international market) ahead of Valentine’s Day. Farmers are expecting a turnover of Rs25 to 30 crores this season. Throughout the season, the climate was very conducive for rose farming and this time, Maval did not have to deal with non-seasonal rains. As of now, farmers are busy taking last-minute orders.”
“The state agriculture department should provide cold storage at Pune or Mumbai airport which will help farmers to maintain the quality of roses ahead of exports. The government should also provide farmer insurance protection against natural calamities,” Thakar said.
Yashwant Kashid, a farmer from Talegaon Dabhade, said, “Production is good this year, however, the winter season was not at its peak which has impacted rose farming a little bit otherwise farmers have not suffered any losses this time around.”
With Covid-19 ebbing, labour charges and costs of other materials have increased. Earlier, farmers used to get farming material on credit but now shopkeepers are not providing it on the same terms. Other than Maval, Nashik and Bengaluru have developed very good rose farming.
