Over the past three decades, Savar in Dhaka has become a unique area for commercial flower farming. In Shyampur, Bongaon and Birulia unions, from fields to homestead yards, flowers are grown as a farm product, and they are the main commercial crop all year round.

As in Godkhali, Jashore, known as the country's flower capital, farmers' lives here have been transformed by flower farming, and many families have improved their socio-economic condition. There are thousands of such success stories.

Alongside the success, various crises have arisen. Fresh natural flowers must now compete in the market with artificial flowers, a problem for flower farmers across the country. But Savar's farmers say the land used for flowers is itself being lost to non-farm uses.

These small growers, the makers of a colourful economy, want flower farming to expand widely in the Savar area.

Source: Shykh Seraj, Hridoye Mati O Manush. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.