Flowers are an interesting (and controversial) product in a developing country context. Flower growing is relatively high value and, by comparison with flowers grown under cover on an industrial scale, the out-of-season (‘summer’) flowers grown within a small-scale farming system are relatively low risk and low cost.
Small growers need to dedicate just a quarter of an acre (0.1ha) of their farm to flower growing in order to reap the equivalent rewards of more than two acres of tea, the next most profitable cash crop. At the time this project started, tea and coffee had been falling in value – and flowers offered a quicker return on investment than commodities that only yield a return after some years. Flowers also offered a good opportunity for a second household income for women.
Kenya’s success in supplying horticultural products into supermarkets in the UK has been well documented. Its good soils, weather, institutions and infrastructure put Kenya in the top league of global high-value agriculture exporters, with horticulture (including flowers) ranked second to tea among Kenyan export earners. But the sector has been facing a number of obstacles.
Agricultural production is sharply divided between huge commercial estates and small-scale family farms. The latter face significant challenges as holdings are subdivided over generations, meaning that to sustain a family each farm needs to supplement food crops with high-value cash crops. The Kenyan small-scale farming sector has proven its ability to produce high-specification fresh vegetables and flowers for European retailers.
Kenyan small-scale farmers have been able to meet stringent quality standards for vegetable products. The dominant model has been one of top-down ‘outgrower’ relationships with farmers under contract to large exporters. Small-scale farmers have very little involvement in the highly lucrative flower export sector, which
is dominated by estate-scale production by grower-export companies.
The space for SME exporters in this lucrative sector has also been constrained. To be acceptable to the market, small-scale farm produce must look as if it
comes from one farm, with consistent quality and availability. That requires organization, aggregation of supply and quality control. This had been achieved by Wilmar, which had managed to aggregate out-of-season flowers from small-scale growers for the Dutch flower auctions through an innovative outgrower scheme.
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Inspiration
