Marigold farmers overjoyed as flower demand peaks

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Nov. 10:Tihar is the festival of flowers and lights. So the flower famers are busy picking marigold and amaranth, as the demand of flowers surges during Tihar.

Despite the increase in domestic production, Nepal needs to import 20 per cent of marigold flowers from India to meet the demand during Tihar festival, according to the Floriculture Association Nepal (FAN).

Floriculture Development Centre, Godawari, Lalitpur which is within the jurisdiction of the Bagmati Province has already stopped giving recommendation letter to flower entrepreneurs to import flowers from India.  

Sudhir Shrestha, chief of the Centre said, “In order to encourage the domestic production, the decision has been made to ban the import of flowers from India.”

Min Bahadur Tamang, president of the FAN, said that domestic production is expected to meet 80 per cent of demand and the rest 20 per cent flowers will be imported from India.

Tamang said that the Floriculture Development Centre had banned the import of flowers but Plant Quarantine and Pesticide Management Centre (PQPMC) freely let the flowers enter from the checkpoints. 

After seeing the gap in coordination between the two authorities, the association has asked with the PQPMC not to allow the entry of flowers in excess of demand from the checkpoint, said Tamang.   

According to an estimate, 300,000 kgs of flowers has already entered from the checkpoint.  "The chief of PQPMC told me this morning that other flowers will not enter in coming days because the flowers to meet the demand have already entered," said Tamanag.    

National demand of flowers has not been met by domestic production despite increased national flower production annually. The demand of flowers has also been growing each year, he said. 

Flower demand has become high in five days of Tihar festival but extra flowers cannot be produced targeting the Tihar. The cultivation of flowers takes three months. After the Tihar, there is difficulty to manage flower market at the national level. So, the additional demand needs to be met with imports from India, he said.  

PQPMC has dispatched a letter to other plant quarantine offices across the country to stop the illegal import of unhealthy and poor-quality flowers. 

The Centre has written to 14 plant quarantine offices operating across the country, including Tribhuvan International Airport, for testing the quality of imported flowers. 

According to the FAN, various types of flowers worth Rs. 330 million were imported, while flowers worth Rs. 6.8 million were exported in last fiscal year.

The commercial flowers have been cultivated in an area of 221 hectares in 48 districts of Nepal. 

Farmers are also very happy with the government's ban on the import of Indian flowers. However, the demand for flowers is still low, according to businessmen.

Beda Adhikari, a farmer of Ghatta located in Ilam Municipality-10 Godak, has cultivated flowers around the house.

But the demand has not come as much. “If there is no demand until the day of Kaag Tihar, we may have to cut the plants and take them out to the market," said Adhikari.