Floriculture Development Scheme

What is the Floriculture Development Scheme?

Floriculture Development Scheme is a horticulture scheme of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Government of Meghalaya, run through the Directorate of Horticulture. According to the department's scheme page on megagriculture.gov.in, the objective is "To motivate the farmers to take up floriculture (traditional and non traditional flowers) as commercial venture through distribution of planting materials and other inputs."

The assistance is stated plainly. The department provides good quality flower planting material at 50% subsidy and a low cost polyhouse free of cost with a minimum of 100 sqm per unit area. Alongside those two headline benefits, the scheme supplies organic fertilisers, micronutrients, organic and plant protection chemicals, and drip irrigation.

The economic argument behind the scheme is set out in the department's own description: floriculture is a low volume, high value crop, and for a farmer on a fragment of hill land the value per square metre matters far more than the tonnage per hectare. Meghalaya's holdings are small: departmental figures put the average operational holding at 1.50 hectares, with small and marginal holdings working 82.57% of the total cropped area, and a 100 square metre polyhouse of cut flowers can return more than the same land under a cereal.

Which flowers does Meghalaya promote?

The department's floriculture pages describe floriculture as covering the cultivation of flowers and ornamental crops from planting through to marketing, including the production of planting material by seed, cutting, budding and grafting. The crops named for the state's conditions include:

• Orchids, for which the Khasi and Jaintia Hills are well known
• Chrysanthemum
• Gerbera
• Carnation
• Lilium
• Rose
• Gladiolus
• Flowering shrubs and house plants

The department also runs a floriculture nursery at the Government Fruit Garden, Shillong, and a Tissue Culture Laboratory to raise the production of quality planting material for horticulture crops. Both feed the material distributed under this scheme, which is why availability in a given season is finite and why the queue at the block office matters.

Who is eligible for the Floriculture Development Scheme?

You can apply if:

• You are a bonafide farmer of Meghalaya. The published eligibility criterion is simply "All bonafide farmers".
• You hold a minimum of 0.2 hectares, about half an acre. This comes from the mode of selection, which limits beneficiaries to bonafide farmers "having minimum area of 0.2 (hectares)".
• You are willing to invest for future expansion in planting material and infrastructure. The department states this expectation in the same selection line, and it is a real filter, a polyhouse handed to a farmer with no intention of continuing is a wasted unit.
• You have a site of at least 100 square metres that can take a polyhouse and has water within reach for drip irrigation.

You cannot apply, or you will not be selected, if:

• You hold less than 0.2 hectares.
• You are not a resident farmer of Meghalaya, since the scheme is state-funded.
• You want the polyhouse for a non-floriculture use or intend to resell the material. The assistance is tied to taking up flower cultivation.
• You are a trader or nursery dealer rather than a cultivator.
• The season's planting material has run out in your district, which is a timing problem rather than an eligibility one.

What documents do I need?

How to apply for the Floriculture Development Scheme

1. Find the Horticulture Development Officer for your Community and Rural Development Block or Horticulture Circle. The department's published route is that "Bonafide farmers can apply in plain paper through the nearest Horticulture Development Officer of a CD Block/ Horticulture Circle." This is the horticulture channel, not the agriculture one.
2. Write a plain-paper application giving your name, village, block, the area you hold, the flower crop you want to grow, and whether you are asking for planting material, a polyhouse, or both.
3. Attach proof that you hold at least 0.2 hectares together with your identity proof.
4. Submit it and ask the office to record the date of receipt, since farmers are taken up in the order their applications arrive.
5. Be present for the site inspection. Horticulture staff check the plot and, for a polyhouse, whether the site can take a 100 square metre structure with a usable water source.
6. Collect the planting material when the office notifies you, and pay your 50% share against a receipt. Plant it promptly: cut flower planting material deteriorates quickly in storage.
7. Take delivery of the polyhouse if sanctioned, and follow the guidance on spacing, drip lines and plant protection that the Horticulture Development Officer provides.

How much does a farmer actually pay?

Two different rules apply to the two parts of the package, and confusing them is the commonest misunderstanding about this scheme:

• Planting material — the farmer pays 50% of the cost. The department bears the other 50%.
• Low cost polyhouse; supplied free of cost, with a minimum unit area of 100 square metres.

Organic fertilisers, micronutrients, organic and plant protection chemicals and drip irrigation are named in the department's description of the assistance under the scheme. The exact quantity supplied in any year depends on the district's allocation, so ask the Horticulture Development Officer what the current year's package contains before you plan your planting.

Why applications do not succeed

• Land below the 0.2 hectare minimum, or no document showing the area held.
• Filed with an agriculture officer instead of a horticulture officer, which sends the file on a detour.
• Site unsuitable for a polyhouse; sloping, inaccessible, smaller than 100 square metres, or with no water source for drip irrigation.
• Planting material exhausted for the season. The nursery and tissue culture laboratory have finite output.
• No demonstrated intent to continue, where the selection note about willingness to invest in future expansion works against a one-off request.

A rejection on stock or season is not final. Reapply at the start of the next planting cycle, and ask the office when the material for your chosen flower is expected.

How do I sell the flowers?

Floriculture only pays if the flowers reach a buyer. Two departmental supports help:

• Market price information. Register at www.megamb.gov.in, the Meghalaya State Agricultural Marketing Board site, to receive wholesale prices of agriculture and horticulture commodities by website and mobile SMS under the department's market intelligence head.
• Post harvest marketing infrastructure, a separate horticulture head that creates grading units and other post harvest facilities for farmers holding at least 0.2 hectares. The application route is the same Horticulture Development Officer, so ask about it in the same visit.

Whom to contact

1. Horticulture Development Officer of your CD Block or Horticulture Circle, the correct first point for this scheme.
2. District Horticulture Officer of your district.
3. Agriculture Marketing Officer, Directorate of Horticulture, for price and marketing questions.

The Director of Horticulture is at Cleve Colony, Shillong 793003, phone 0364-2227434, email hort-meg[at]nic[dot]in. There is no application fee, and no agent is authorised to charge a farmer for arranging planting material or a polyhouse.