Benefits and constraints faced by the farmers while growing flowers in polyhouses

Abstract

India is an agricultural country and its history goes back to thousands of years. Floriculture or farming of flowers is a discipline of horticulture which is basically concerned about the cultivation of flowers, foliage plants and their marketing. Demand for cut flowers is increasing day by day in India and protected cultivation in the polyhouses is emerging as the best alternative because it helps in using the land and other valuable resources more effectively. Government of India has taken many initiatives to promote the polyhouses for Floriculture. So, a study was conducted on 100 farmers in Haryana state doing Floriculture in polyhouses with the objective to find out the benefits and constraints faced by farmers while using polyhouses for growing flowers. The results show that 31 per cent of farmers were educated up to high school and 29 per cent were educated up to senior secondary school; 67 per cent farmers owned 4-6 acres of land. Environmental benefits got first rank with WMS of 1.67, followed by economical benefits (WMS 1.64) and technical benefits (WMS 1.58). Economical constraints were the highly perceived constraints and scored WMS 1.61 (rank I), followed by miscellaneous constraints which scored WMS 1.55 (rank II) and technical constraints which scored WMS 1.32 (rank III). Thus, to overcome the constraints faced by the farmers, government needs to provide more knowledge through trainings on the use of polyhouses.