Jasmine lost its fragrance

The price of the Jasmine was decreased sharply. Jasmine, the fragrance flower is being cultivated at Sathyamangalam areas in Erode district over twenty thousand and odd acres of land. More than three thousand farmers are engaged in the jasmine, Mullai and Merry gold flower cultivation earned reasonable income.

Due to coronavirus attack the flower industry was affected very much and almost all the farmers could not pluck the Jasmine and Mullai from their plants and brought to Sathyamangalam Flower Shandy for sale, due to restrictions announced by the Government.

After two months the Sathyamangalam Flower Market (Shandy) was started on Monday (today) and only four tonnes of Jasmine and 750 kilogram to one tonne mullai flower arrived for sale. More than fifty local traders from various parts of Erode district attended the auction sale. No trader from Karnataka and Kerala attended the sale.

Jasmine was sold for ₹175-200 a kilogram. This is much lower than the seasonal price. Similarly the Mullai was sold at ₹110 a kilogram. Only the flower vendors attended the sale and purchased almost all the arrived flowers. Merry gold, Kangambaram and some other two flowers also arrived with low quantity also sold for decreased price.

Muthuswamy, President, Sathyamangalam Flower Merchants Association said some Jasmine Perfume companies those who are buying the Jasmine and flower merchants from Mysore, Bangalore and Kerala did not attend the sale due to curfew. The flower farmers could not maintain their plants for the past two months because of the curfew clamped by the Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala Government. For the past couple of days the farmers are engaged in maintaining their flower plants and if rain started the standing plants will flourish and more quantity of flowers may arrive for sale.