Kenya's Horticulture Success Story: Coping with Physical Issues in Exporting

1. Unit 2A Production Agriculture Coping with physical issues

2. Kenya Exporting Out of Africa Kenya’s Horticulture Success Story?

3. Introduction • With over 70 percent of the poor in developing countries living in rural areas, agricultural growth must play a significant role in reducing poverty. This is likely to require improved agricultural export performance. • In Kenya, horticultural exports has generated jobs that directly support a half million workers, small farmers, and their families. • Small farmers are effective suppliers for horticultural products such as French beans or avocados, when satisfactory contracting arrangements are established with an exporter or processing firm.

4. Introduction • Large farms cultivate other crops, notably cut flowers, and have generated thousands of jobs for labourers who own little or no land and who are the truly poor. • Many more urban poor find full- or part-time employment in the packhouses, cutting and packaging produce for export. • Working conditions vary but these employees and farmers tend to be better off than their peers outside the industry. Recently, the industry associations within the horticulture sector have adopted employment guidelines that go beyond official government policy.

5. In Sub-Saharan Africa • Horticultural products—vegetables, fruits, and cut flowers—have grown steadily to become the single largest category in world agricultural trade accounting for over 20 percent of such trade in recent years. he horticultural exports now exceed $2 billion, yet this is only 4 percent of the world’s total – so there is plenty of room for growth.

6. For Kenya, • Horticultural products have accounted for two-thirds of all growth in agricultural exports and recently surpassed coffee to become the third largest, after oil products and tea. • Kenya is the second largest horticultural exporter in Sub-Saharan Africa (after South Africa), the second largest developing-country exporter of flowers in the world (after Colombia), and the second largest developing-country supplier of vegetables to the European Union (after Morocco). • Approximately 135,000 people are now directly employed in the sector. If you assume each worker supports 2 others, then this is close to ½ million people are supported by the industry out of 35 million in total. • Most are poor Kenyans, for whom the industry has made a real difference in their lives.

7. How your supermarket flowers empty Kenya's rivers (Independent Oct 2006) • Kenya's second largest river, River Ngiro, is a life-line for farmers in the foothills of Mount Kenya, but it also essential for the large flower farms. • These farms mostly use greenhouses as while the climate is good for growing flowers, most flowers are grown in greenhouses to protect them from rain, wind or hail storms that reach the highlands in the rainy season from April to July. Wet roses rot easily. So irrigation is essential. • The official Kenyan water authority, regional bodies, development groups as well as small-scale farmers have accused flower companies near Mount Kenya of "stealing" water which would normally fill the river. • These farms which export to all the major UK supermarkets and many places in the EU may be taking as much as 25% of water normally available to more than 100,000 small farmers.

8. How your supermarket flowers empty Kenya's rivers (Independent Oct 2006) • "The big flower farms should be taking water only during the floods, but they are taking it from high up the mountains whenever they need it. They are all stealing water. They steal it between 10pm and 2am. We do not know exactly how much they are taking, but it is a lot of water. They take it to replenish their stores when they think we sleep. We follow the river at night and see them do it," said Severino Maitima, head of the Ewaso Ngiro water authority, which manages all the water in the region. • Locals and campaigners say the river now peters out 60 miles short of where it used to. • The overuse of water causes conflict between small-scale farmers and risks the lives of nomadic pastoralists, the Maasai.

9. How your supermarket flowers empty Kenya's rivers (Independent Oct 2006) • "The flower companies are exporting our water. A flower is 90% water. We are one of the driest countries in the world and we are exporting water to one of the wettest.” • One British-owned Homegrown, which cultivates more than 300 hectares of flowers in the region and has built five major reservoirs and diverted a river on the slopes of Mount Kenya, accused other companies of taking water illegally. • "We only take what and when we are legally entitled to. There have been instances of some water users taking water at night to avoid detection," said Robert Fox, managing director of Homegrown Kenya.

10. But …by Rosie Goldsmith BBC Crossing Continents • Sarah Higgins is a flower grower and a member of the Kenya Flower Council and the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association (Lake protection group) . • Her farm was described to me as "exemplary" and she was happy to talk with me. • "There are those who aren't fully educated yet - there's always a bad penny - but we are working very hard to bring all flower farmers up to the same standards...If we pollute the lake," she continues, "we've killed the industry." Sarah Higgins uses only acceptable chemicals and an environmentally-friendly, computerized drip-irrigation system for her farm; I saw her workers wearing protective clothing.

11. And there are Fairtrade flowers • Fairtrade certifies that the workers on these large-scale flower farms have decent wages and working conditions. • This includes the right to join a trade union, the right to negotiate collectively with the employer on terms and conditions of employment, freedom from discrimination, no child labour, and a safe and healthy working environment. • The negotiated price includes an additional payment called the Fairtrade premium, set at 10% of the negotiated price. • This premium money is reserved specifically for investment in projects which benefit the workers and their wider communities. • How this is spent is decided jointly by elected workers and management representatives. • This is often on schools, medical centres, water supply and facilities for the general population.

12. And there are Fairtrade flowers • As said, flowers need a lot of water. • The Fairtrade minimum standards require certified farms to protect the nearby water supply. • Several farms harvest rainwater or drill boreholes to give local communities access to water. All are committed to reducing pesticide and insecticide use in order to reduce pollution. • Longonot farm is located near Lake Naivasha where there are serious concerns about overuse of water and environmental destruction. • The farm employs hydroponic techniques, dramatically reducing water use, and then recycles water for use on other crops, conserving even more. • At Finlay Flowers too, hydroponics and water recycling are employed.

13. And there are Fairtrade flowers • The company has also constructed a wetland area which purifies water from the pack house and from cleaning chemical containers so that it can feed safely back into the water table. • The Fairtrade committee also set up a tree nursery which employees requested that they run themselves, thereby gaining new skills. • The project enables local farmers to buy tree saplings at a subsidised rate so that, as well as producing fruit to be sold at local markets, the trees are contributing to reforestation in the area. • Approximately 90% of power used at Finlay is hydroelectric. • A trial biological pest management project is being conducted in which insect predators are bred to control spider mites and other pests, reducing insecticide use. • At Oserian Flowers, geothermal energy is used to heat some of the greenhouses. • The vast majority of the land at Oserian is uncultivated or given over to forestry, and the company has established three wildlife corridors through which animals from Hells Gate National Park have access to Lake Naivasha. 

14. You can buy Fairtrade flowers fromInterflora, John Lewis,ocado, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose

15. Kenya has started greenhouse production of tomatoes, raising hopes that the popular vegetable will become available throughout the year at affordable prices. In the new system developed by the Kenya Horticulture Development Programme and agricultural inputs suppliers Seminis Seeds and Osho Chemical Industries, a grower requires about 240 square metres of land and a greenhouse kit to get started. The cheapest kit, comprising a 500 litre water tank, irrigation drip lines, plastic sheet, seeds and chemicals has been put at $2,239 for those participating in the project. The plot of land can grow 1,000 plants. One last intensive greenhouse crop with a difference

16. According to the KHDP, the greenhouse tomato project, one of the activities the programme is supporting to help increase the incomes of rural households, is borrowed from Israel, where the country has most of its agriculture under greenhouses due to scarcity of water and land. It is also widely practised in the United States. It the concept is widely embraced, Kenya could start enjoying year-round supply of tomatoes, which currently get damaged during the wet seasons, pushing prices through the roof. According to Peter Randa, the marketing manager and project technical advisor, growing crops under greenhouses has many advantages, among them the ability to produce huge quantities on a small piece of land and continuous harvesting. One last intensive greenhouse crop with a difference

17. The tomatoes have a shelf-life of 21 days compared with 14 for those grown in the open. It takes a shorter period — two months — for greenhouse-produced tomatoes to mature, while it takes a minimum of three months with outdoor farming. Due to controlled irrigation and temperatures, the crop sports a continuous output of flowers and fruits, all at different stages. One plant has a potential of up to 15 kg at first harvest, going up to 60 kg by the time it has completed its full cycle — recommended at one year. One last intensive greenhouse crop with a difference

18. The plant vines are supported inside the greenhouse with sticks and strings, growing up to 50 metres in height. If well looked after, the minimum plot of land under greenhouse production can yield up to 25,000 tonnes of tomatoes. Tomatoes are generally highly susceptible to diseases requiring heavy application of pesticides but under the greenhouse growing techniques, which come with basic training on hygiene, most of common infections are easily kept at bay. Also kept at bay are insects and other pests known to invade plants as well as weeds. Apart from huge savings on crop protection chemicals, which constitute a huge part of production costs, less labour is employed in a greenhouse, while exposure to chemical toxins associated with application is minimised or eliminated altogether. So it is also good for the environment. One last intensive greenhouse crop with a difference

19. What about air miles?

20. What do people say? • Some say we should not buy any produce that has been air freighted in. • We should only buy local food in season • Others say that Kenyan methods of production use less fuel, fertilizer and pesticides in production, which more than off-sets the tightly packed beans in the hold of a huge aircraft. • A still different argument is that rather than Aid we should encourage LEDCs to trade in things they are good at producing. The air miles thing is a bit of a red herring.

21. Homework • What do you think about this? • Do a bit of research – come to a view and write a letter to the paper explaining and justifying your view – try to include mentioning other views as well • E.g. • Some people say that …. But I do not agree with that because … • There are several links on the wiki – you may find others if you like

22. Kenya can be used in case studies as examples of … Intensive farming Issues with water use How FairTrade helps Use of greenhouses Ways out of poverty in agriculture Issues of exports from LEDCs Issues of food miles