Flourishing flower business in Gilgit Baltistan

                                      

The story of a girl from Gilgit, she not only fed flowers in the mountains but also established a whole industry of flowers.                                     

 Flourishing flower business in Gilgit-Baltistan

 I like flowers since my childhood. When I used to participate actively in aat Khana Jati flower decoration with my mother, this passion grew with age.” Rozeena Babar of Gilgit was narrating her success story. Rosina Babar received her master's degree from Karakoram University, Gilgit. She wanted to make her passion for flowers her career, but it was not that easy. "The problem was that people here had no taste for flower decoration, nor were there any flower shops in Gilgit and even local flower cultivation. were done.”

 Rozeena further said that if we wanted to decorate flowers for a function, we had to order flowers from the nearest market in Islamabad or Lahore, for which we had to wait for 18, or 20 hours. But this is a thing of the past, not today. Not only are they doing flower decoration and business, but they are also growing flowers. And 76 other women are also involved in this work.

                                                        

It was in 2017 when Rosina went to the Agriculture Department Gilgit-Baltistan with a business plan and sought their support. The department liked her idea so much that they not only trained a group of women (selected by Rosina herself) to grow flowers but also provided 80,000 gladiolus bulbs to encourage them to start planting. Can start working.

 "But I was afraid that this experiment might not fail. So I initially started cultivation on my land so that if there is any loss, it will be mine. But Alhamdulillah, my experiment was successful. And gladiolus for the first time on the land of Gilgit-Baltistan. The harvest smelled.

 Ghulam ullah Saqib, deputy director of the Agriculture Research Center Sugar, is in charge of this project. Ghulam ullah holds an MPhil degree in Agriculture Research. He says that he has done 6-7 years of research regarding floriculture in Gilgit-Baltistan. And now he can confidently say that Gilgit-Baltistan is an ideal area for flower cultivation. He says that Natural disasters such as landslides, floods, and unseasonal heavy rains are common under climate change. All these incidents have disturbed the crops of the entire Karakoram region. Now we have to reorganize the crop calendar and along with it introduce some new crops whose production time is different from traditional crops i.e. these crops are early or late. Flower crops are perfect in this respect. The crop is ready in just 90 days and the risks are less compared to other crops. Saqib Sahib further said that the flower crop is a low-cost and low-labor cash crop. Only twenty thousand rupees are saved. But if gladiolus is cultivated in the same area, more than one lakh will be saved. At present, 22 different organizations in the entire Gilgit-Baltistan region have around 450 women working on flower cultivation.

            

 Rosina Babar of (http://akrsp.org.pk/) a subsidiary of AKRSP Local Support Organization (LSO) http://akrsp.org.pk/index.php/projects/accomplished/local-support-organisations/ She is also the vice-chair, supports Saqib Sahib that the flower crop is a cash crop. She says that currently 76 women from 7 different organizations under her supervision are involved in flower cultivation. They provide all kinds of training and support right from supply to the market. But the local market is very small. So we carefully pack the extra flowers and supply them to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore. A stick of flowers is sold for an average of 25 rupees and each woman associated with flowers earns from 25 to 80 thousand per month and it depending on the area of ​​land and her hard work. It was very difficult to go. Today, she is doing business by taking care of her home and children and is standing on her feet.

 More than 50 women of Rahimabad village located at a distance of 38 km from Gilgit are involved in the cultivation and supply of flowers. One of them is Shahida. She teaches in Rahimabad village school. She joined this work in 2019 for additional income. Initially, they grew flowers in a small area. The experiment was successful and Shahida earned 30 thousand. Now she is motivated. She spends her time after school tending to these flower crops. Shahida had finished her studies after her B.Ed but now she has resumed her studies. She is doing Masters's in Sociology from Allama Iqbal Open University. She hopes that with this extra income from the flowers, she will easily cover her education expenses.

 Moka of Gilgit says flower cultivation is a woman-friendly activity. Potatoes or wheat etc. require a lot of labor. Most of the men have moved to the big cities for work. In such a case, the responsibility for crops falls on women. When the potatoes are ripe, it is a very laborious task to remove them from the fields, while everything from the cultivation of flowers to harvesting has to be taken care of, but there is no physical labor. Moka also supplies its extra flowers to Lahore or Islamabad.

 The main problem for these women farmers is the lack of a large market at the local level. Rosina says that the flower market at the local level is very small. It is true that when there is a government function or some program of NGOs, we are called for flower decoration. But the practice among common people is very less.
 Big hotels here like Serena also supply flowers but in small hotels, there is no custom of flower decoration.

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 Aftab Rana is the CEO of the Sustainable Tourism Foundation. He has been working on eco-tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan for several decades. He is also of the opinion that the practice of flower decoration in the two big hotels of Gilgit-Baltistan is less. He says that flower decoration has a special role in the tourism sector around the world. Especially in the hotel industry, it has a special place and is included in the international standard. Tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan has increased a lot, so the up-gradation of services in this sector is now very much needed.

  We are developing National Minimum Standards for Tourism and Hospitality in collaboration with National Coordination Board (NTCB). Under this, the hotels will be categorized according to whether they are three-star or four-star. It will also have requirements for service quality and interior decoration of rooms. A new market will also be born regarding flowers.

 Rozeena Babar and other women have set a new trend in Gilgit-Baltistan by cultivating flowers, opening new doors of employment but their dreams are even higher.” We want to expand our work and empower more women. We want to manufacture perfumes and other cosmetics from flowers but we don't have a cold storage facility so a lot of material is wasted. If the government stands with us at the initial level, we will also do it.”

 Khubanistan Model Agri Tourism Village

 A village in the Shugar district of Gilgit-Baltistan has been declared a Khobanistan model agri-tourism village by the Shugar district government. Because this area is famous for the best apricots. All the women of 130 families have been trained in flower cultivation. Gladiolus is being cultivated on a large scale but apart from them Carnations, Hyacinth, Tulip, Marigold, Hydrangea, Sunflow, and two varieties of rose can also be successfully cultivated here. Cut Roses we order from Kenya which we can easily grow here. They say that only roses are cultivated in Iran's Kashan province and the entire province's economy depends on them.

 Apart from this, women have been trained in Apricots Drying. In 2019, the same company bought 1,250,000 rupees worth of apricots from these women because the taste and cleanliness of the apricots here were very good.

  Ghulam ullah Saqib conducted a limited but successful experiment in growing saffron in Pakistan in 2019. Saffron is imported into Pakistan. 80% of women farmers are involved in this project, Ghulamullah says that saffron is also a cash crop for women because the price of first-class saffron in Pakistan is 30 thousand rupees per gram.

 Regarding further projects, he says that quality seed production can be done in Gilgit-Baltistan. Because these areas are about 6,000 feet above sea level and the insects that spread the virus cannot survive in these high-altitude valleys, so technical Standard seed production can be done and seed banks can be established.