V-day cheer for rose sellers

Price expected to quadruple by next week, as demand surges in smaller cities

The ancient Greeks and Romans, we are told, identified the rose with their goddesses of love, and so on to its modern symbolism in the West. Now, it appears, this bit of the East is readily adopting the same message, the Shiv Sena’s views be smothered.

Traders in the stem confidently say the price of one, about Rs 15 so far this week, will sweep up to a record Rs 60 by Tuesday. Which is Valentine’s Day, something most in this country didn’t know or care about, including the young, till fairly recently.

No longer so. “Lots of demand is coming from tier-II towns, where people have become more familiar with this perennial means of expressing love,” exults Ramakrishna Karuturi, managing director of Karuturi Global, the Bangalore-based World no 1 in the production of cut roses, among other things. It’s part of the reason why his company began a Rs 1,500-crore expansion drive in 2010; they already produce about 750 million stems of diverse flowers.

He has lots of competition now, he agrees, driven by the same sentiment that driving up that price of a rose stem over this week. “Lots of agro companies have also found investment in floriculture very remunerative. They’ll be expanding business away from existing epicenters in Maharashtra and Karnataka to eastern regions, with better climatic condition,” adds Karuturi.

The rose leads it all, it appears. A recent Assocham study says demand for that thorny stem multiplies several fold during ‘love days’. Valentine’s in only one of several imports: Mother’s Day is another of several, and it all has to be said with flowers. As with anything to do with India, the magnitude of numbers tend to, well, numb. Overall sales (it’s 30 per cent compounded annual growth) are likely to be Rs 8,000 crore by 2015, up from Rs 3,700 crore at present. Put another way, we’re talking of hourly sales of Rs 1 crore, 24/7. That’s all flowers; two-thirds of that is roses. This year, Rs 2,400 crore in sales. Multiply it three-fold over the next three years.

Little wonder that growers, and traders, are garlanding each other and their accountants. “Despite higher realisation from overseas markets, rose exporters have diverted attention towards home markets,” confirms a trader based in Pune. The Assocham study is based on interactions with about 250 rose merchants and cultivators. The demand rises by 25 per cent at home (and 30 per cent abroad) as V-Day draws closer, said 55 per cent of the respondents.

The fall in the rupee’s value against major currencies is a another reason to cheer here. A majority of growers says they hope for a 30 per cent rise in revenue during February alone.

However, crude handling of flowers after cutting leads to a hit, say 40 per cent of the respondents. They want far more output; the market can take it all, and more, far more. Many cultivators say they were experimenting with genetically modified roses, injecting different types of genes to help fight disease and fungal pathogens, and to extend their vase life.

A mere 400 million cut roses a year now in output. The sky, as long as there are those demographically dividend-spewing lovers continuing to pour forth, is the limit, for now.