Friends jumpstart business with marigold flowers

Ernakulam: Usually during the Onam festival season, Kerala imports bulk of flowers used in making floral carpets and other ceremonial decorations from neighbouring States like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

This year, however, four youth from Ernakulum district started cultivating marigolds from June with the aim of using home-grown flowers instead of buying from outside states. Marigolds are the centrepieces for the pookalam or floral rangoli that people decorate out on the floor usually in front of their homes during the 10-day long festival.

The four friends – Haneesh Sree Harshan, CG Jibin, Sujith Lal and PV Vineeth started cultivating marigold flowers and in less than one acre of land and planted 800 marigold plants. The crop of flowers have been already selling it in retail and wholesale.
They are also planning to harvest the remaining Marigold flowers just a day before ‘Thiruvonam’, the most auspicious day in the Onam season.

Haneesh Sree Harshan said, “The motivation behind this was that one of my friends had already done such an intiative in 2017-18 initially and it was successful. We wanted to earn some extra income because times are tough.”

“We got unexpected results. This is the first time any kind of farming has been done by us. Before we got into it we consulted with several people and asked for their inputs,” said CG Jibin, an artist.

Sujith Lal, who is employed in a Bengaluru firm says, “100 kg of flowers have already been sold at many places. Since the demand is high, we are selling it for Rs 150 per kg. We planted 800 saplings in June. These saplings were obtained from the panchayat and they were the first to provide manure. The rain has not affected the plants.”