"Kenya’s flower-export business is a rare success"

Around the edges of Lake Naivasha, under the shadow of a dormant volcano, Mt Longonot, one of Kenya’s most successful export businesses of recent years has become established. All around the lake, and off dirt roads that lead from it, are acres and acres of plastic tenting in which flowers of all sorts, but especially roses, are grown for export. At the biggest operators, thousands of workers go in each day to water, feed, pick and prepare the crop. On average, 360 tonnes of flowers are flown out of Nairobi airport every day, mostly to Europe but also to Asia and the Middle East. Kenya is the world’s third-largest producer of cut flowers; the crop is its second-largest export, after tea. Since 1988 the industry has grown more than tenfold.

Africa’s global share of agricultural exports, as of manufactured exports, has declined in the decades since independence, from over 8% in the 1970s to just 2% in 2009. Nigeria used to be the world’s biggest producer of palm oil; Ghana of cocoa; and Kenya and Ethiopia of coffee. All have now been overtaken by other regions. Yet the plastic-roofed greenhouses of Kenya’s flower farms are the closest thing the country has to an Asian-style high-tech manufacturing cluster.

Click here to read the complete article at www.economist.com.

Related Articles → See More

Strengthening collaboration in Ecuador’s agricultural sector

UK government responds to the Independent Review of the Windsor Framework

Christmas comes early for UK garden center sales, but cost challenges continue

China: Beijing International Flower Industrial Park officially opens

US (FL): New flower farm coming to St. Petersburg

UK: 15 years of Irish poinsettias at M&S

"The Swedish market resembles the Dutch one in many ways"

Australia: Growers push back over proposed import relaxation rules

Taiwan: Poinsettia harvests down 30% ahead of Christmas

UK: Over 50% of real Christmas trees are bought in garden centres