The New Nation - Internet Edition

Maswood Alam Khan

As to flower cultivation Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) finances four kinds of flowers: for tuberose (rajani gandha) at the rate of Taka 20,000 for every 33 decimals (one bigha) of land, for gladiolus Taka 50,000, for marigold (gada) Taka 17,000 and for rose Taka 37,000. Flower cultivators have been pressing the bank to increase the credit limits, formulated back in 2001, to meet hiked prices of their inputs.

Compared to any other agricultural products flower plants have fetched the cultivators much more higher net profits. Their profit ranges are approximately 36 percent from rose cultivation, 58 percent from marigold, and a whopping 97 percent from gladiolas.

This year 1047.76 acres of land in Jessore district alone has been brought under flower cultivation by 1687 cultivators who sold flowers worth Taka 1.10 crore on New Year, Taka 1.75 crore on Valentine's Day and Taka 1.60 crore on Ekushey February, all in 2008 and they hope to sell flowers worth not less than Taka 1.20 crore on coming Bangla Naba Barsha on April 14. Popularly known as the floricultural capital of Bangladesh 'Godkhali flower market' under Jhikargacha upazilla presides over an annual sale of Taka 15 crore worth of flowers supplying 70 percent of the country's total flowers for both domestic consumption and exportation.

Ten thousand cultivators all over Bangladesh are engaged in nursing a variety of flowers and foliages on three thousand hectors of land. The country's floral revolution was initiated by an enthusiast named Sher Ali of Panishara village under Godkhali union who took a bold venture back in the year 1982 bagging a handsome profit of Taka two hundred thousand from cultivating tuberose on his father's 33 decimals of land setting a historical landmark that may one day introduce Bangladesh as a leader in floriculture like the global leadership the country once enjoyed in producing jute.

At the insistence of my colleague Bhismadev Mondal, the bank's Chief Regional Manager of Jessore district and with a view to evaluating justification for enhancing credit limits of flower cultivation and especially to seeing for myself a success story of cultivating gerbera, a new flower with greater vase life I undertook last week an extensive tour around different unions of Jhikargacha and Sharsha upazillas.

An intimate discussion with people from the villages of Panishara, Krishna Chandrapur, Towra, Patuapara, Syedpara, Nabinagar, Manikhali, Bejiatala, Gangadharpur, Shimulia, Andolputa, Jamlagi, Barbakpur, Chapatala, Gaburapur, Khashkhali, Ramchandrapur, Nilkantha Nagar, and Borni has helped open my eyes to a huge business potential of floriculture and also to abominable conditions in which our poor farmers are sweating in vain in their chase for rivalling other export oriented industries of Bangladesh.

I could feel the fire and zeal in the eyes and voices of the cultivators and traders of Godkhali who are confident that floriculture alone can transmute the poverty of Bangladesh into prosperity; the only thing that seems dowsing their fire is their lack of equipment, skill and capital, the three resources our bank of course can provide finances for, but only up to a limit. The major policy and fiscal supports should come from our government and donor agencies.

BKB is way ahead compared to any other bank in providing flower cultivators with easy access to finance. The bank has so far financed Taka 20.90 million to 823 flower cultivators in and around Jhikargacha and Navaron.

Paraphrasing an advice of our last Prophet Muhammad (Sm) the Bengali magician of rhymes Poet Satyendra Nath Dutt in his poem "Phooler Fasal" sang: "Jootey Jodi Mootey Ekti Paisa, Khaddya Kinio Khoodar Lagi; Dooti Jodi Jootey, Tobey Ordhekey Phool Kiney Nio, Hey Onooragi!" (If you earn one penny, spend that for food to slake your hunger; but, if you make two pennies, spend the other penny for buying flowers, oh devotee!).

We have unfortunately taken pretty a long time in Bangladesh to follow this precious word of advice propagated aeons ago. Not before early nineties a young boy in our society took it as an élan of love to plant a red rose or wrap a garland of marigolds on the bun of hairs coiled at the back of his fiancée's head---to mimic what our poet Kazi Nazrul Islam fancied in his song: "Moor Priya Hobey Esho Raani, Debo Khoopai Taraar Phool" (May my hand decorate my honey as a queen with stars of flowers studded on hairs rounded at the back of her head!)

Our people belonging to Hindu community hugely adore flowers and cultivate flower plants in and around their homesteads as flowers are their best offerings to their God. Elaborate and simple garlands, fragrant whole flowers and piles of petals daily rain over deities in temple, home and village shrines wherever Hindus worship. Of all the myriad buds and blooms, the most revered and esteemed by their Gods and Goddesses is the magnificent lotus.

Perhaps none other than Rabindranath Tagore in one of his devotional songs could so vividly paint a Hindu worshipper quaking and trembling with fears and qualms about God's whims and wishes while placing flowers on the altar of an idol: "Deener Taapey Roudra Jalai, Shookai Maala Pujaar Thalai; Eei Mlaanata Khomaa Koro Hey Provoo." (Oh God, forgive, please, my failings in offering you fresher flowers as the garlands on my worship-plate got a little withered, a little pale by heat of the day and scorch of the sun!).

Flowers withered or paled a little bit by heat or sun are immediately thrown into garbage bins anywhere in the developed world where too flowers are viewed as something sacred and where they are also wreathed round the cradle, the marriage-altar, and the tomb.

A florist in Europe will be kicked out of business if a rose from his shop reaches a recipient with a single petal paled or crinkled, let alone a flower like those mutilated by florists at Shahbagh in Dhaka. I found in Godkhali market in Jhikargacha the wholesale traders bundling up stems of flowers in mishmash the way we find a retailer in a flea market stuffing a shopping bag to bursting with vegetables.

Nowadays cut flowers are presented in beautifully designed fleurettes with decorative sleeves and sloping side walls. A special flower gel at the bottom of bouquets instead of water is used making it possible to present flowers horizontally instead of vertically. Cutting edge technology is employed in designing crates, containers and bouquets with protective tubes suitable for wet packing of upright flowers---all with a view to prolonging vase life of flowers.

For exporting by air or by sea in refrigerated containers cut flowers tucked up snugly inside crates are treated as delicately as a newborn human baby without her mother around would have been taken care of. Multiple layers of corrugated paper boards and special polymer films are used to fabricate contoured containers of flowers with automated devices for gas permeability allowing oxygen and carbon dioxide to flow at prescribed levels.

In spite of bottlenecks as to inferior quality, lack of policy support, lack of entrepreneurial training for the cultivators, and unscientific ways of handling and preservation of cut flowers being faced by our farmers and traders Bangladesh earned about 32.71 million US dollars by exporting cut flowers and foliage to about 34 countries including developed destinations like USA, UK, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia in 2006-2007 fiscal year (July 2006 till June 2007). Tuberose, rose, orchid and marigold are among the major flowers that make up Bangladesh's floral basket for exports.

Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) has already taken up some initiatives to train our flower cultivators and cultivate varieties of highbred flowers at their research centre in scientific methods. But that is not enough considering our aspirations to participate in the 160 billion dollar worth of global flower market.

Our flowers, plants and foliages must compete with other rivals in "Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer" in the Netherlands, the largest flower market of the world, where world price for flowers and plants are set in every fraction of a second and where 19 million flowers and 2 million plants from all over the world are sold every day.

The present day industrial revolution demands a jumpstart from the lowest tech to the highest one in one go bypassing the middle rungs of development mere for survival in neck breaking competition in the world of trades, thanks to dizzying speed of information and innovation being processed by cutting edge computer technology.

Forgetting the old myth "slow and steady wins the race" our entrepreneurs' present motto has to be: "Fast and craze is the key for survival". If we have to survive we must gaze at the top-notch of every technology to employ in our every field, call it ready-made garments, or poultry, or tissue culture in agriculture.

India, Kenya, the Netherlands, and Thailand are following the latest scientific methods in growing and preserving their flowers which have vase life for a minimum of 15 days. But our flowers lose their lustre in a matter of two days.

What is urgently needed to be established right in Godkhali is a state-of-the-art laboratory as a joint venture with an internationally reputed horticulture giant---akin to KF Bioplants based in Pune, India---exclusively for propagating exact copies of our flower plants via tissue culture, a process called micropropagation under sterile condition, obviating the necessity for growing plants from seeds, thereby greatly reducing the chance of transmitting diseases, pests and pathogens and enhancing the quality production of flower plants with higher vase life.

The most genetically integrated wish of any living being---a flower plant or a human being---is not to become extinct as a species. Accordingly, a living plant as a descendent with a long chain of its race has taken thousands of years to evolve its safe way to leave behind its genetic imprint on this earth for the sole purpose of procreation. The safe way has thus so far been through flowering and fruition until a geneticist poked his/her nose into the inner realm of a live cell. Propagating plants directly from cells bypassing the long and arduous way of pollination, fertilization, etc. through flowers, fruits and seeds has redefined the very foundation of live science.

Beautiful flowers have flourished on this planet partly because humans are so attached to them. Nature won't even pollinate many of the domesticated flowers we adore. Geneticists suggest that nature's pretty flowers are thriving because people didn't destroy them when they cleared land for agriculture. Instead, they cultivated them and have been doing so for more than 5,000 years and the modern micropropagation would ensure that the species of pretty flowers would stay to continue warming the cockles of human hearts as long as the human civilization would stay in place.

Of all the flowers under the sun the one I weirdly love most since my childhood is bloomed paradoxically by plants humans hate most: the showy flower with lavender-blue petals having slightly lilac shades blooming out of glossy leaves of water hyacinth, what we call Kachuripana and the botanists call Eichhornia Crassipes. I don't know why whenever especially when I stroll in the tranquillity of an evening at the end of a rainy day I enjoy gazing at those Kachuripana flowers to soothe my eyes and relax my nerves. I tried many a time to decorate my vase with Kachuripana flowers; but their vase life is very short.

However, we Bangladeshis would love to look forward to the day when geneticists would succeed to prolong vase life of many of our exotic and indigenous flowers.

We fervently hope that the day is not far away when on the gigantic LCD screen system inside the main hall room of "Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer" in the Netherlands would scroll the name Bangladesh with her basket of flowers and the international traders crowding the hall would gape without a blink at the display board to note the latest quoted prices of our tuberose, gladiolus, marigold, Bengal rose, gerbera, bakul (mimusops elengi), kadam (cadamba indica), aparazita (clitoria ternatea), sandhamalati (miriabilis jalapa), and kamini (muraya exotica)---and maybe kachuripana flower (eichhornia crassipes) too!