Before the Flowers Bloom: Climate Stress and Shifting Livelihoods in Maharashtra’s Flower Economy

By 2:00 a.m., the road from Dadar Station to Mumbai’s Sau Meenatai Thackeray Flower Market stirs to life. Trucks roll into the municipal market, carrying 8 to 20 tonnes of marigolds (genda) and chrysanthemums (shevanti) from districts like Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur, Pune, and Nashik in central Maharashtra. An hour later, foragers from villages across the state reach Dadar railway station, carrying small bundles of leaves and flowers after travelling long distances—sometimes farther than the trucks.

Vidarbha forager, Panchshila, as she calls herself, spreads her floral offerings on a footpath between Dadar station and the phool mandi—Mumbai’s bustling flower market. Her bundle includes thorn apples (dhatura), poisonous yet sacred to Shiva, and waxy banyan leaves (bad ka patta) from her last trip to Wadegaon in Akola district. Come rain or blistering heat, her livelihood depends on walking, climbing, and gathering across forests and fields she doesn’t own but has learned to read and glean with quiet precision.

“We don’t have fields of our own,” Panchshila says plainly. “We bring what we can from the forests or what’s left in others’ fields. Waha phirna padhta hai, phir phir ke kuch milta hai.” For her, gathering means moving in loops—returning to places where something might remain. Unlike commercial farmers who rely on predictable seasons, her quiet adaptation to the land’s shifting rhythms offers a fragile lifeline in an unpredictable climate.

Mumbai’s Wet May, Vidarbha’s Dry Reality

While Panchshila navigates Vidarbha’s dry fields, Mumbai faces a starkly different reality. In May, the city recorded its wettest month in over a century, with nearly 300 millimetres of rain in Colaba - even before the monsoon officially began. Panchshila’s words cut through: “Humare yaha barsaat hui hi nai hai… dhoop bhi utni hi hai. Vidarbha bolte.” (We haven’t had any rain. The sun is still just as harsh. That’s Vidarbha.)

According to the India Meteorological Department, 19 of Maharashtra’s 36 districts, including Vidarbha, faced moderate to severe rainfall deficits from June 1–25. The dry stretch from November to May brings not just heat but acute underemployment, pushing many to migrate seasonally to sugar factories, brick kilns, or cotton fields in search of work. Women like Panchshila, who forage leftovers to sell in Mumbai’s flower market, often hail from marginalised tribal groups such as the Gond, Pardhi, and Katkari (recognised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group). Their knowledge of wild edibles and flowering cycles is deeply rooted in the margins of forests and farms.

What the Land Gives: Knowing Cycles and Gaps

If the rains come steadily after sowing in June, Panchshila names the crops that will grow, counting them on her fingers: jawari (sorghum), chana (gram), toor (pigeon pea), and kapas (cotton). When the rains begin to retreat, the greens start to appear: chane ki bhaji (gram greens), chawli (amaranth), baingan (brinjal), mirchi (chillies), and batwe ki bhajiya (wild spinach). She knows too well the gap between what’s grown in the fields and what she’s able to gather. If the police don’t drive her away, she says, come find her next month when the sanai ke phool bloom—bright yellow flowers of Crotalaria juncea - a hardy legume grown to restore soil, feed animals, or provide coarse fibre. Sometimes it’s left to flower on the edges of fields. Perfect, she adds, for stir-fries or fritters. Unlike the marigolds trucked to the market, her offerings rely on what the land leaves behind.  

The flower market may be just a kilometre from the footpath, but that short distance connects many worlds—from a forager in Vidarbha to flower traders bringing in truckloads of flowers from Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, and Pune. In the third week of May, these districts in the Western Ghats saw unusually heavy rain. Pune recorded over 119 mm—its wettest since 1961 - while Kolhapur hit 130 mm, the highest since 2010.

When the Rains Come Early and Hard

The heavy May rains left Mumbai’s flower market buzzing with worry. Flower traders reported supply losses, fluctuating prices, and delays in replanting saplings, with Sangli, Satara, Junnar, and Kolhapur among the hardest hit. These districts are known for their moderate climate, ideal for floriculture. In recent decades, many have shifted from water-intensive sugarcane to floriculture, often intercropping with vegetables. Rajendra Lakshmanrao Hingane, a commission agent with 35 years of experience, pointed to Nikamwadi in Satara for floriculture, where over 100 families grow six varieties of marigolds and eight of chrysanthemums using drip irrigation and canal-fed wells.

Pratik, a 28-year-old farmer from Junnar, explained, “We switched to flowers for better returns. They’re ready in 45 days and yield for three to four months—unlike sugarcane, which takes a year and a half and needs too much water. We can sell directly at the market.”

The shift to floriculture due to climate change and farming offered hope for better returns, but unseasonal storms in May caught farmers off guard. Early and intense downpours, especially in Sangli and Satara, devastated marigolds just as buds began to form. Kishan Tajdar, a commission agent and flower farmer, lost five acres of blossoms that were ready to bloom.

At Mumbai’s phool mandi, Aviraj Pawar, the market in charge, confirmed the devastation of climate change on farming after a group from Sangli visited: “Their flowers were blooming, but the unseasonal rains spoiled everything. Clearing the fields now means a total loss.” A farmer from Sangli added, “This was our season, but eight days of relentless May rain ruined our crops. We lost at least a lakh per acre.” The clay-heavy soils of Sangli, which vary every 20 kilometres, trapped water, leaving farmers helpless until the rains stopped. Then, a blistering heatwave worsened the damage. “The sun came out strong,” the farmer said. “The flowers stayed stuck - neither falling nor growing. The roots rotted; the water had nowhere to go.” This double blow of rains and heat disrupted the delicate cycle that farmers depend on.

The Cost of Care: Fungus, Fuel, and Falling Prices

The rains and heat not only destroyed crops but also drove up costs for farmers who salvaged some flowers. Even in elevated areas, those who reached the market faced disappointment as input costs outstripped buyer willingness to pay. Vinod Bedekar, who manages supply from Junnar and Satara, explained, “Sudden rain on budding marigolds brings karpa, a bacterial fungus. You spray fungicides, but rain washes them off, so you add a sticky solution to make them hold. The costs keep climbing.”

Farmers typically apply fungicides such as carbendazim or copper oxychloride, along with adjuvants that help the spray adhere to plants and remain effective during rainfall. In humid conditions, these treatments are repeated every 7 to 10 days. Some flowers still made it to the market as Nashewanta Maal (spoiled produce), which agents say survived only because of newer hybrid seeds from companies like Namdhari Seeds.

These seeds produce flowers that last longer and can handle wet conditions during transport. But too much moisture caused spotting on the petals. Flower traders often start by quoting high prices, but most of the damaged stock ends up being discarded. “Daagi hua toh fainkna padhta hai”—once blemished, it has to be thrown away. Commission agents sell it only if farmers agree it’s better to cut their losses. Otherwise, the flowers are dumped behind the market, where they’re sometimes reused to make incense sticks or compost.

A Cracked Supply Chain: Risks Too High, Returns Too Low

Discarded flowers in the market’s backyard reveal a deeper strain on flower traders. For seasoned commission agents, market fluctuations tied to religious and cultural calendars are routine, their days beginning before dawn to meet demand. But erratic harvests over the past three years have disrupted the supply chain from districts like Sangli, Satara, and Pune. Bajirao Mahadev Khedekar, a veteran agent, urged farmers to keep sending produce despite the rains: “Maine kheti waalo ko bola, lagatar maal nikalte raho. Unhone paani mein ghuskar risk liya, lekin maal damage ho gaya.” (I told them to keep the produce coming.) They risked the floods, but the stock was ruined.

When Maharashtra’s supply falters, traders source flowers from other states, but simultaneous arrivals often flood the market, crashing prices and leaving festival buyers facing unpredictable costs. Bajirao worries about more than surplus; early sowing after May rains could lead to another glut by July, skewing stock and pricing cycles. Some agents are now diversifying suppliers to stabilise trade, but the delicate balance between agriculture and economy, once sustained despite ecological strain, is breaking down.

Farmers in districts like Sangli and Satara once absorbed high input costs, trusting market prices would justify the gamble, even as environmental risks grew. Now, those risks—floods, droughts, and fungal outbreaks—make returns too uncertain.

A Mirror in the Margins

Government subsidies for polyhouses and greenhouses are pitched as climate-smart solutions, encouraging controlled farming environments. Yet, traders and farmers at Mumbai’s Dadar Flower Market highlight a disconnect: these programmes assume all farmers can afford such technologies, ignoring the cyclical improvisation needed to manage recurring losses. Increasingly, they see environmental changes not merely as risks but as forces that reshape entire seasons of overproduction or shortage. Without long-term support, technological fixes offer little—especially when the entire ecosystem - soil, water, and atmosphere - is in flux.

A recent study in Land (MDPI) mapped how sensitive Satara and Sangli are to desertification. It found that over 60% of the land is at risk, with 28% marked as fragile and 12% as critical. The study shows that land, climate, vegetation, and social pressures are all connected and growing crops in protected spaces like polyhouses isn’t enough to fix the problem. If policies focus only on polyhouse subsidies, they may miss systemic issues like waterlogging, soil erosion, and unpredictable rainfall, which farmers now face every season.

Yet, in Vidarbha’s parched fields, Panchshila’s foraging offers a quiet lesson. Unbound by formal subsidies, she reads the landscape with precision, gathering thorn apples and banyan leaves without over-extracting. Her approach is not a model but a mirror, reflecting resilience markets struggle to value. This raises an important question: what kinds of knowledge will help us get through uncertain times, and who already carries that wisdom? For traders and farmers facing climate losses through economic setbacks, is this a losing battle—or can ecological thinking begin to connect with their everyday struggles in real, practical ways?

This story is produced as part of the India Water Portal Regional Story Fellowship 2025.