THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS - IFEAT

Such cultivation and use of flowers have been recorded since the earliest Vedic period. Thiscontinuous and extensive usage over many millennia have made flowers an integral part of Indianculture (Fig. 3) across linguistic, ethnic and religious communities.Fig. 3: Examples of cultural usage of flowers in IndiaThe widespread demand for flowers has led to the development of a dynamic country-wide tradenetwork. This is catered to by a cultivation area of more than 65,000 hectares across the country. Thechain (Fig. 4) from the farmers to the final consumers includes primary and secondary wholesalemarkets with a wide selection of retailers, traders and agents depending on the peculiarities of eachsegment (whether geographical or application based). The relationship between the processingindustry and the retail trade is quite symbiotic. The processing industry benefits from a lower averagecost of procurement compared to a situation where the flowers are grown specifically for extractionwhile the trade benefits from the risk diversification of an alternate demand that has different driversfrom that of retail consumer demand.Fig. 4: Indian flower trade chain53