Families engaged in flower business in Bangarpet

Abstract

India is a land of many festivals. To celebrate these festivals flowers are the main stay. Be it celebrating birth days, anniversaries festivals, functions mainly weddings or valentines saying it with flowers is the heart of the events. In recent years with the disposable income increasing and urban areas expanding at a fast rate, celebrating any program even official ones have become the norm, so much so it has become a hightly profitable commercial business today. Flowers are mostly sourced from the farms outside Bangalore mostly from Hoskote and Kolar and Bangarpet which deposit all the truckloads of chrysanthemums, roses and lilies by the thousands in K.R Puram flower market, Rammurthy nagara flower markets. These flowers are sourced mainly from Bangarpet flower fields run by many agricultural families in Bangarpet. This is one of the main income earning business today as there are many event management companies which thrive on the flower cultivation. Both men and women farmers grow flowers and sell it in the main flower market in Bangarpet bus stand. They are then transported to major cities like Bangalore ,Mysore and Kolar. These farmers employed around 2 to 3 farmhands, usually depending on the size of the farm and the investment made (depending on the flowering variety)besides small ponds were lilies were also grown and sold specially to temples for pooja’s and marriages. For this study 200 samples were taken from 8 villages of Bangarpet, simple random sampling was carried out and questionnaire method was followed. The main soil used for flower cultivation in Bangarpet was red soil and coupled with many lakes and water bodies growing of flowers for business and livelihood become a major occupation in Bangarpet .The objectives were to study the main problem and challenges faced by these farmers regarding transportation from flowers field to markets, pricing of flowers and availability of space in markets. The other objectives were used to find out their socio-economic status and competition they face from the artificial flower markets. The findings indicated they earned from 1000 rupees to 2000 rupees per month depending on the size of their farm. They identified space in markets and pricing of flowers (due to their perishabiliyt) as their major problem and other challenges was most of the time they were ruthless elbowed out by the native wholesale flower merchants and established flower stalls.. Their monthly income was very less as they had to support a huge family of 7 to 8 members. Mostly women and some male farmers were engaged in flowers businesses. Research methodology has used both primary s well as secondary data. This study was based mostly on primary data .The main suggestion were to give these flower cultivators a fixed price to sell so that during off season they are not subject to huge losses and creation of separate stalls to sell flowers in marktes for them by charging a small rent will go a long way in encouraging their business.