Over the years, it has been noticed that people of Bhutan has developed affinity to flowers which can be gauged by the number of people visiting shops which are keeping potted plants in Trade fair and any fair organized in Thimphu. Also the numbers of requests to BAFRA for giving clearance to applicants for import permit for the import of ornamental and flower plants have gone up year after year. The export market for flowers is estimated to be worth $ 10 billion which is increasing at the rate of 6-9 % every year. The market is not only for potted plants but also includes cut flowers, dry flower and flower related products like potpouri. There is an ever increasing flower market the world over, however, almost no research and development work has been done in Bhutan so far although Bhutan is a home to numerous sources of flowers because of its vast biodiversity of flowering plants.
There is a vast potential for flowers for the domestic as well as export market especially in India. We can take advantage of the festival season in India for export of cut flowers as we have a very conducive growing climate and environment to grow flowers.
The CoRRB has been doing mainstream research on Horticulture especially on fruits and vegetable. In order to address the demand for ornamental and flower plants first within the country, CoRRB had been contemplating to carry out some research on flowers. However, due to lack of technical expertise in the field, we could not do much so far. Now, with the intention of initiating some work on floriculture, four-days training workshop on Floriculture and MAP (Medicinal and Aromatic Plants) was organized by the Council for RNR Research of Bhutan at RNRRC-Jakar from 2-5 June, 2009 with financial support from UNESCO and CFC-MAP. There were 3 resource persons namely Dr. S. Jaganath, Chief Scientific Officer from University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore; Dr. Nishritha Bopana, Science Officer, Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, New Delhi and Mr. Tshitila, MAP Specialist, RNRRC-Yusipang. The participants mainly consisted of researchers from four Research Centres, Agriculture Extension Agents and Farm Managers.
The objective of this training workshop was to make the participants aware about the various aspects of floriculture and to enhance their technical capacities on the cultivation and propagation of floriculture and MAP. It is expected that the participants will be able to take up the research on floriculture henceforth although in a small scale. For the first time, research on floriculture has featured as one of the activities of the 10th five year plan.
There is a vast potential for flowers for the domestic as well as export market especially in India. We can take advantage of the festival season in India for export of cut flowers as we have a very conducive growing climate and environment to grow flowers.
The CoRRB has been doing mainstream research on Horticulture especially on fruits and vegetable. In order to address the demand for ornamental and flower plants first within the country, CoRRB had been contemplating to carry out some research on flowers. However, due to lack of technical expertise in the field, we could not do much so far. Now, with the intention of initiating some work on floriculture, four-days training workshop on Floriculture and MAP (Medicinal and Aromatic Plants) was organized by the Council for RNR Research of Bhutan at RNRRC-Jakar from 2-5 June, 2009 with financial support from UNESCO and CFC-MAP. There were 3 resource persons namely Dr. S. Jaganath, Chief Scientific Officer from University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore; Dr. Nishritha Bopana, Science Officer, Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, New Delhi and Mr. Tshitila, MAP Specialist, RNRRC-Yusipang. The participants mainly consisted of researchers from four Research Centres, Agriculture Extension Agents and Farm Managers.
The objective of this training workshop was to make the participants aware about the various aspects of floriculture and to enhance their technical capacities on the cultivation and propagation of floriculture and MAP. It is expected that the participants will be able to take up the research on floriculture henceforth although in a small scale. For the first time, research on floriculture has featured as one of the activities of the 10th five year plan.
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