While couples all over the world look forward to Valentine's Day to affirm their love, India's rose merchants are looking forward to the 'festival' to revive their sagging sales.
Despite the growing crowds drawn to events like the twice-a-year flower show at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden - Bangalore's 210 acre lung space - the state of India's cut flower industry is far from rosy.
The Bangalore-Hosure belt in Karnataka-Tamil Nadu and Pune in Maharashtra have been the traditional regions for growing flowers: their climate and logistical convenience make them ideal regions for developing rose farms. But a host of issues - like non-availability of workers, steep input costs and freight - have turned Bangalore's as well as India's roses uncompetitive in European markets.
India's cut flower exports - roses make up almost 90 percent of them - have not grown in recent years. Between 2006-07 and 2009-10, the value of flower exports actually dropped from Rs 567 crore to Rs 294 crore.
"My production cost works out to Rs 2.50 per stem while I get about Rs 8 per stem on exports. But freight itself takes away about Rs 3-4 per stem," Sridhar Chowdary, MD of Vinayaka Agritech recently told Business Today.
The Indian rose growers, according to him, make most of their revenues from the week-long Valentine's Day season in February, when each stem commands a price between Rs 15 to Rs 20. Karuturi Global, Suvarna Floritech, Vinayaka Agritech, and Indobloom are some of the Bangalore's largest flower exporters.
Bangalore has the country's only functional auction centre for roses - the International Flower Auction Centre - where the price per stem varies between Rs 3 and Rs 7, depending on the demand. The auction of 1.20 lakh stems on a single day in the last week of December - or during the Christmas season - is the highest number recorded so far, according to Dr.G.K Vasanthkumar, the centre's managing director.
He expects the price of rose stems to touch between Rs 8 and Rs 9 during the Valentine Day season this February.
Rose growers, whose numbers are fast dwindling, are keeping their hopes up for the upcoming Valentine's Day season.
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