THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS - IFEAT

FUTUREBesides the long tradition, there are several reasons why India is a good source for a wide range offloral products and will continue to be so for the near future. The diverse agro climatic regions ensuresuitability for most cultivation requirements. This diversity also ensures that climatic changes due toglobal reasons are not uniform across India. Hence, as one area becomes unsuitable for a particularspecies, another area in India becomes suitable for its cultivation. Flower cultivation and harvesting isalso labour intensive and highly appropriate for the typical Indian small and marginal land holdingswhere the bulk of the labour is done by the farmer and his family with minimal dependence on paidlabour. Farmers also find cultivation of flower crops a good hedge because of its nature of continuousincome over a significant period of time. The presence of a huge and efficient retail market also helpsdefray costs for the extraction industry. Highest technological capabilities for equipment fabricationand supporting infrastructure is also available locally in India. The presence of a sizable and rapidlygrowing domestic demand for the value added floral products in India is also an advantage for theindustry. Finally, a competitive industry structure and the entrepreneurial and enterprising nature ofboth farmers and manufacturers are also important factors.Raja Palaniswamy is a Director at Jasmine C.E. Pvt. Ltd., the leading floralextracts manufacturer in India. He joined Jasmine in 1998 immediately aftercompleting his Master’s in Business Administration degree and has been drivingthe organic sales growth of the company since.61