Future of Cut Flowers in Bangladesh

Ashraful Kabir^1* & Ataur Rahman²

¹Department of Biology, Saidpur Cantonment Public College, Nilphamari, Bangladesh
²Department of Biology, Saidpur Government Technical College, Nilphamari, Bangladesh

*Correspondence to: Dr. Ashraful Kabir, Department of Biology, Saidpur Cantonment Public College, Nilphamari, Bangladesh.

Copyright © 2020 Dr. Ashraful Kabir, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction
The term cut flowers includes a variety of plant material, both fresh and dried preserved [1]. On the other hand, cut flowers and their any parts (buds, flowers, stems, colorful stalks) used for floral and decorative purposes [2]. Bangladesh is the land of flowers. In winter season, we enjoy lots of flower blooming. In any occasion especially in marriage huge flowers are used. Though its price is high but people want to take the natural taste in those occasions. The scent of flower and acceptance both are remarkable in this way. The profit is good than the cultivation of other crops. For this ornamentation now flowers are recognized in a wide range. Very few numbers of flowers are enough to decorate a room. At the time of bridegroom or bride’s car this flowers are used. In any nursery or roof of the house some people are cultivating lots of flowers for their hobby or business.

The history of floriculture in Bangladesh maybe old but flower business is not older than a decade. Floriculture was brought to light in late 70’s by some innovative farmers who took up Tuberose (the popular flower at that time) for small scale production. This kickstart step acted as the foundation on which large scale commercial production of flower in Bangladesh started in Hikkargacha upazilla of Jashore district in the mid 80’s. Afterward it was extended to Jashore sadar Sharsha and Chowgachha upazilla as well as Kushtia, Chuadanga, and Satkhira districts. Within a short period of time Jashore, Savar, Chuagdanga, Mymensingh, and Gazipur turned to be a major flower production belt of Bangladesh. With the increasing demand for flowers and ornamental, the floriculture industry had been gaining popularity among the farmers as it gives 3-5 times and 1.5-2 times more profit from rice and vegetable production respectively. At present 10000 hectares of land is under flower cultivation where approximately 5000 resilent farmers are actively growing flowers and foliage in the country with 150000 people directly or indirectly involved in it as their sole livelihood. Different varieties including Marigold, Tuberose, Rose, Gladiolus, Gerbera, and Chrysanths are grown commercially. Flowers growers and traders make huge money every year in February, a month that sees huge sale of flowers as people celebrate three major events-Pohela Falgun (spring festival), Valentine’s day, and International Mother Language Day. About 4000 retail shops are available in the country of which 40% is present in Dhaka, 25% in Sylhet and Chittagong and the rest 10% in other districts with wholesale flower business transaction of $16000 everyday [3]. There exist some serious problems such as poor extension and consultancy services, lack of knowledge and infrastructure of post-harvest management lack of quality certification of flowers and government support is very limited [4]. The objective of this article is to find out the future of flower business for ornamental purpose.

Materials and Methods

Flower Shops and the Quality of Flowers
During the time of this survey, lots of flower shops were available with maximum 20 types of flowers items. Birthday party and any opening ceremony people like raw flowers. It looks a natural look inside the house. In all shops, those flowers were excellent in their texture. The shop keepers always busy for maintaining all flowers. They use water with coal at the base of flowers. Sometimes they use soil with tub for the permanent storing various flowers. With the flowers in those shops they always provide expert for room decoration. They are really well-known on room or car decoration. In any normal or very occasional events they just wrap some flowers with glossy paper which looks nice and very cheap too. For quick ornamentation this raw flowers are good at all. Very few flowers are sufficient for decorating a room or a car.

Harvesting
Farmers harvest the flowers in the morning and place them in water in buckets to remove the field heat. They grade the cut flowers based on size, color, and defect.

Packaging
At the first stage of packaging at field level old newspapers were used for wrapping the harvested flowers. Some farmers started to use corrugated box for packaging flowers specially Gerbera flower. Tight packaging prevents free air flow around the flowers resulting heat buildup which deteriorates the flowers. Bangladesh is an agro based country, where the climate is very favorable to flower cultivation [5,6]. Despite the domestic production, Bangladesh has to import significant quantity of flowers.

Results

Discussion
In late 80’s only a few shops were opened in Dhaka city for selling fresh cut flower. Dhaka is the main center of flower business in Bangladesh. In Dhaka, flower shops are two types- permanent and temporary. According to official statistics, the country earned USD 1530.22 from exports of cut flowers in the fiscal year 2015-2016, while the earnings were USD 25,516.07 in the FY 2012-2013 (The fiscal express, Sep- 2016). This indicates that aesthetic sense of people is increasing as the standard of living is increasing. Rose, Gladiolus, Tuberose, Dahlia, Marigold, Gerbera, Bela, Dolanchampa are the examples of some important cut flowers that have high demand in the inland markets [7]. Flower society of Godkhali (Jashore) reported that flower of about USD 54 crores are produced in Godkhali alone every year and total business amount stands at USD 100 crores. Gladiolus coming into play in recent times occupied the top position with a percent market share of 31.11. But an interesting fact is that even though the production of Gerbera is done in Jashore in huge amount its market share in case of revenue is quite minimal. The farmers usually get their inputs like seedlings, corms, bulbs from local seedling producers as well as produce themselves some special ones like Gerbera they import from India as the quality of the seedlings production in Bangladesh is still lacking. The financial and technical support for flower production comes from different GO’s and NGO’s as well as banks [4].

Limitations

• In the country there is no tissue culture lab for continuing research. For this farmers are not getting quality seedlings especially Gerbera flower.
• Underdeveloped flower transporting system increases the spoilages of flowers. In summer season this spoilages are higher.
• Investments and grants for research on Agriculture should provide.
• Additional training and proper technical support should be ensured for these growers.
• There is a high demand of fresh flowers and pot plants in Europe, America, Japan, and Middle East.
• From China and Thailand lots of plastic flowers are coming so that using of natural flowers is decreasing in some cases.
• We are not enough sincere on IPM (Integrated Pest Management) technique for flower cultivation.
• Global warming has affected on our agricultural sector especially on flower production.
• Lack of adequate infrastructure facilities as well as market.
• Difficult to manage quality seeds and planting materials.
• Lack of advanced technology, transport facilities, pesticides, and farm tools.
• Lack of cold storage of flowers.

Conclusions
By this study, it is surely concluded that the flower business is not completely new idea for decoration. In our any ceremony this raw flowers are excellent. Moreover, people like it. It is easily collected and price is lower. In addition, very few flowers are sufficient for ornamentation a room. In our roof of the house it is surely possible to culture many flowers. If we manage a piece of land for cultivating flowers and for this minimum labor we will need. This attractive business is very easy to promote with all workers. Most people like the color and scent of flowers. Young or old aged persons can cultivate the flower plants. Any retired person or at any leisure time there is not shortcut of nurturing flowering plants. During the time of culturing of these flowers any allergic reactions for the associating with the flowers were not remarkable. Considering the benefits, moderate labor, small piece of land, acceptance, low costing, and rapid growth this business can open new door for alleviating poverty from the society.

Bibliography

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