Meghalaya has started Dendrobium orchid cut flower production in Umsning Block in Ri-Bhoi, an aspirational district of the State. The aim is also to make Ri-Bhoi as an orchid cut flower production district of the State.
The project is a collaborative effort of the Bio Resources Development Centre (BRDC), Upper Shillong and the Institute of Bio-Resources and Sustainable Development (IBSD), Upper Shillong through financial support of BIRAC-BioNEST scheme under the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
Meghalaya and other North East states of the country are endowed with a climate conducive for commercial production of orchids. Among the commercial orchids, Dendrobium hybrids occupy 85 per cent of the space.
There is tremendous demand for Dendrobium cut flower spikes of commercial standards both in the national and export market.
Locally, there is high demand for the flower especially during the peak wedding season, All Souls’ Day and other festivities. In order to meet the demand, florists have to procure the orchid from Thailand or South India.
The potential of raising commercial standard Dendrobium cut flowers in Meghalaya has not been tapped and this challenge has been taken up jointly by BRDC, Upper Shillong and IBSD, Meghalaya.
The present project aims to capitalise on Dendrobium cut flower commercial production in Meghalaya, so that bio-resource entrepreneurship is developed and a booming Dendrobium cut flower cottage scale industry is established across the State for gainful employment of women and youth of the region.
This project is conceived on the Hub and Spoke model and aims at end-to-end demonstrations of commercial cut flower Dendrobium production technology right at the village level on a cluster-based approach for farmers of Ri-Bhoi district.
The central hub is managed by a Self Help Group (SHG) having more than ten members and similarly all the ten spokes are managed by the SHGs having ten members each. The spokes are located in the cluster around the central hub.
The central hub is located at Ferrando Speech and Hearing Centre, Nongdiengngan where two polyhouses of 500 square metres each are set up. As many as 12,000 plantlets have been distributed from this central hub.
The area of the ten spokes is 300 square metres each. 49,000 plantlets have been distributed to the spokes.
Till date the implementing agencies have provided infrastructure, training and technical knowhow and planting materials to the hub and spokes respectively.
The main function of the hub is to fill in gaps that may arise in the spokes relating to quality planting materials at a mutually agreed rate that can generate revenue through the supply of planting materials to the spokes and also to act as a collection centre for marketing of the produce.
Since there is huge demand for the cut flowers in the market especially orchids, this would be the right platform for the commercial production of Dendrobium orchids which will empower women SHGs, thereby catalysing economic growth for sustainable development.
This project initially aims to bridge the supply gap of orchids within the local market which could later be maximised to fulfill national as well as global demands.
The expected outcomes from this project include self-sustaining farming of orchids by the farmers, innovative and large-scale production of orchids through improved agricultural practices, motivating the community to start self sustaining orchid enterprise, creation of employment opportunities and new economic activities.
Further, skill development through improved agricultural practices for large-scale production of orchids is another initiative and the project targets to train around 1000 farmers by the end of the project and it is envisaged that 100 self-sufficient women entrepreneurs will be created by the end of the third year. Besides, the project will create a tourist hotspot in showcasing and sales the Dendrobium cut flowers.
