Every year during festival months, the flowers from farms are harvested atleast a week in advance and delivered to the wholesale markets in the city. In most cases, the flowers such as roses, also travel from other neighbouring states like Karnataka (Bangalore) owing to the city’s demand. Retailers from all over the city congregate at the wholesale market to buy flowers and sell them at shops.
Due to our fast paced lives, we are unaware of the producer and also journey that these flowers are subjected to. Back in the day, we would have Marigolds, Chrysanthemums and other festive flowers growing in our or neighbours backyards or farms locally. Freshly harvested flowers would be plucked on the day of the festival and given as an offering during our prayers. The members of the house would pluck flowers a day prior to sew them and lace the entrances of the house.
This festival season, to bring back and re-build time honoured relationship with flower farmers around Antharam Village, we collaborated with:
1. Vishnuvardhan Reddy, Nowlaipalle – Marigold
2. Narasimhulu Muthi, Nowlaipalle – Marigold
3. D Satish Reddy, Nowlaipalle – Marigold
4. Ram Reddy, Venkannagudem – Marigold
5. Ranjit Kumar, Nowlaipalle – Chrysanthemum
We partnered with women from the local villages to string the flowers together and pack them into separate bags, ready for delivery. Organo Farm Store pitched in to support the delivery directly from farms to homes.
PC : Meena Murugappan
To our surprise, we were flooded with orders from residents of Organo Naandi, Organo Antharam and their friends & family from other communities. The farmers were able to harvest and sell a total of 234 kgs of Marigold and 75.5 kgs of Chrysanthemums from these farmers.
Here are some pictures shared by the supporters of this initiative. The farmers were very happy to see their hard work turn into beautiful art.
