Floriculture
Topic: Primary Activities: Gathering, Pastoralism, Agriculture and Mining · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Primary Activities"
Meaning
Floriculture is the growing of flowers for sale. It is one branch of market gardening and horticulture, which grow high-value vegetables, fruits and flowers only for city markets. Farms are small but use a lot of labour and money. They depend on irrigation, good seeds, fertilisers and greenhouses, and they heat the greenhouses in cold places. Cut flowers wilt fast, so farms need quick transport to well-off buyers in cities.
Example
The Netherlands specialises in growing flowers, especially tulips. The tulips are flown to all the major cities of Europe within a short time of being cut.
Don't confuse with
- Truck farming: grows only vegetables. It is named after the distance a truck can drive overnight to reach the market, so flower growing is not truck farming.
- Plantation agriculture: large tropical estates that grow a single cash crop such as tea or rubber. Floriculture uses small, intensive farms close to cities.
Related concepts
- Market gardening and horticulture
- Truck farming
- Factory farming
- Von Thunen model
- Precision agriculture