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Valentine’s Day cut flower exports see a slump in Hosur.
Feb 14, 2023

Valentine’s Day rose exports from Hosur has drastically reduced with just about one-third of the usual quantum of flowers exported this season. The fall in the exports is attributed to the reduced quality in production due to downy mildew disease and also the introduction of IGST on air freight making it uncompetitive in the international market, says exporters.

The reasons for fall in exports, however, have varied between small and medium scale farmers, who have mostly stuck to the domestic market this year due to low export quality and decent domestic prices and large contract farmers, whose exports had shrunk despite orders due to the high IGST on air cargo.

The heavy rainfall in October and November had afflicted many green houses and open farms with downy mildew disease. Unlike other pest attacks, where crop recovery is seen within a fortnight, recovery from downy mildew takes close to two months. This has hurt the quality production necessary for the export market, says Bala Siva Prasad, president, Hosur Small Farmers Association, and member of Flower Council of India.

Hosur has seen its Valentine’s Day flower exports touching 80 lakh stems in 2014-15, says Mr. Prasad. In 2015-16, the season saw exports of 60 lakh stems. However this year, only 18 lakh to 20 lakh stems were exported between February 4 and 10 – that six-day window for exports to meet the date on Valentine’s Day - cutting the exports to just one -third.

Cumulatively, there has been a 35% drop in quality production, according to the Hosur Small Farmers Association. This fall in the quality of production, combined with other factors have jointly undercut flower exports.

On the other hand, the price per stem in the domestic market as of Friday was between Rs.14 to Rs.20 while the export price per stem was Rs.20 to Rs.22. Given this less than optimal price difference between domestic and exports, in addition to the affiliated costs of exports that come with premium, labour and freight costs together have made it uncompetitive for small and medium farmers to pursue exports this Valentine season.

Usually, medium scale green houses source flowers from small farmers to push up their exports.

The pinch of low exports, however, is not too hard for the small and medium scale farmers, who are usually part of the export chain for the Valentine’s Day season. That is because of a good domestic demand that has been very high since January 20, the start of Valarpiram muhurtams that coincided in the three States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, bringing in surplus demand and fetched good prices, says Mr. Prasad.

Mr. Prasad, who exports 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh stems every year has not exported this year.

Different scales, different takes

For large-scale contract farmers, the rainfall and the accompanying disease were not damaging due to a good rainwater harvesting infrastructure in high-end green houses of contract farms.

But, it was the government’s IGST on air freight that slammed the hammer on their capacity to export, says Sridhar Chowdary, Managing Director, Suvarna Flora, which had exported over 6 lakh stems.

'The IGST on air freight was introduced last October with 18%. We kept getting enquiries, but could not transform them into orders because of the exhorbitant tax,' says Mr. Chowdary. ' About 20% to 30% of orders were not met for this reason, he says.

But across the various scales of farming, there are a range of issues that need to be addressed. Hosur produces only Taj Mahal variety of Red Rose, while African flowers especially from Ethiopia and Kenya are of high quality and quantity, offering competitive prices helped by low freight charges for the international market.

'We are unable to match the quality of African flowers and the new varieties by other countries. We need to focus on R&D in order to produce new varieties,' says Mr. Prasad, who is also member of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).

The rise in input costs by 150% is also having a cascading effect on over production and exports, according to him.

According to Mr. Chowdary, the National Horticulture Board’s limitation of one-time subsidy for farmers is a big hurdle for expansion of greenhouses. China is adding more greenhouses to its production, while we limit subsidy to one-time limiting expansion of greenhouse, which is necessary to increase production, he says.

thehindu.com

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