| Indian agriculture is witnessing a gradual change and the trend of last few decades shows diversification from field crops towards horticultural crops. Floriculture is being viewed as highly remunerative and profitable ventureof horticulture owing to a steady increase in demand of flowers on account of increase in per capita income, change in life-styles and social values of the people. In a span of eight years (2010-2018), the area under loose flower has grown rapidly by 69.63% as compared to vegetables (21.18%) and fruits (3.22%). Similarly, the production of loose flowers has increased by 90.30% and cut flowers by 58.88% both being much higher to vegetables (25.81%) and fruits (30.02%). The decadal Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.84 and 9.62 has been registered for area and production, respectively of loose flowers.
In terms of increasing farmers’ income, diversification towards flower cultivation results in higher profit per unit area than most of the field crops and therefore can enhance the livelihood of farmers. Flower based mono or sequence cropping system can be one of the alternative options for increasing income from same piece of land. Integrating Farming System, intercropping, bund plantation and protected cultivation comprising of flower crops have been found to be more profitable and sustainable. Comparison between flower cultivating and non-flower cultivating households reveals that the former earns significantly more per unit of area as compared to the latter both in terms of return and thus floriculture is better off even after incurring a higher cost of cultivation.
Keywords: Cropping system, crop diversification, increasing income, floriculture, integrated farming |