Blooming trade: A woman picks roses in a village in Bengal. File picture

Calcutta, Jan. 5: Roses from Bengal will be exported to Holland and Boston on Valentine?s Day next month.

A consignment of 1.5 lakh roses, primarily the Grand Gala and First Red variety, will be flown to Holland and the US to cater to the Valentine?s Day market.

The West Bengal Horticulture Development Corporation sent one lakh roses to London at the same time last year.

?Japan has also shown interest in flowers from our state. We?ve sent about 1,500 samples of roses and garbera to Tokyo last Saturday and are expecting them to place an order soon,? a horticulture department official said. He added that this is Bengal?s first attempt to find a market in Holland and Boston.

Holland sources roses from Kenya and Israel while roses from all over Europe?s flower market come to Boston.

Bengal produces 17.93 crore rosebuds annually across more than 1,380 hectares. Its main rose growing areas are East and West Midnapore, Nadia, Howrah, North 24-Parganas and Siliguri.

Burdwan, the Asansol-Durgapur belt, Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum are also fast becoming rose growers, with new farms springing up.

?Even though we are very good producers of domestic flowers like marigold, china rose, common rose, tube rose and dopati, we did not produce flowers fit for the international market,? the official said. This is mainly because foreign markets want long-stemmed roses which do not grow naturally in Bengal.

Thus, it cannot compete with Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, India?s top Dutch rose growers.