Focus - Flower farming brings elusive scent of success

Kenya is now the leading exporter of cut flowers and other floricultural products to the European market, as these products account for a growing proportion of foreign exchange earnings, the Commonwealth Secretariat reported on Wednesday. It is estimated that more than US $80 million of the export earnings find their way back into the rural economy in the form of wages or payment for goods produced, according to Rod Evans, chairman of the Kenya Flower Council (KFC). Flowers are a key part of Kenya's horticultural industry - growing rapidly, even as manufacturing industry and the economy in general stagnates - and the fastest growing sector of its economy, second only to tea in the nation's foreign exchange earnings. In 2001, flower exports earned the country more than $110 million. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that flowers are an important source of food security because of the income they bring to thousands of people - most of them women - in developing countries, but warned that ecological and health standards are less stringent than for food, with the potential risk of exposure to pesticides for flower workers. However, the environmental and ethical concerns of consumers in the West also offer smallholders in developing countries a chance to create a lucrative niche in the market without degrading their environment or their health, according to the agency. "Flowers are important for food security because of the income they generate - and so reducing pesticide use is a business issue as well as a development and health issue," says Wilfried Baudoin, head of the FAO's horticultural crops service. [http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/3789-en.html] At a conference organised by Kenya Human Rights Commission in February, environmental groups warned that the pesticides applied by the flower growers threatened Lake Naivasha - one of Kenya's few freshwater lakes, around which the rapidly expanding flower industry is concentrated - and that local hippo populations were also under threat. Campaigners at the coalition of Kenya Energy and Environment Organisations (KENGO) are also concerned that the growth of the fresh flowers sector has added to land pressure around Naivasha, and that the flower farms around Naivasha area demand hundreds of thousands of litres of water every day - in a country which has suffered successive, serious droughts. The KFC is trying hard to shake the perception of human or environmental threats, according to the FAO, and has established codes of conduct covering working conditions, including pesticide exposure, for its members. [http://www.kenyaflowers.co.ke/] Last year FAO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) set up a project to validate alternatives to methyl bromide, a powerful soil fumigant being phased out under an international protocol to safeguard the ozone layer. The project included establishing field schools for large growers around Lake Naivasha. Developing countries have agreed to phase out methyl bromide by 2015, a decade after developed countries. In the meantime, they have agreed to freeze its use at the same levels as 1998. According to Ricardo Labrada, FAO's focal expert for methyl bromide substitution, an integrated production and pest management approach to developing alternatives is important, because methyl bromide is so toxic. "Methyl bromide kills nearly all soil-borne pests. Other single control measures are not as effective, so we need to find an integrated solution." Kevin Gallagher, an FAO expert in integrated production and pest management, recently visited a farm in Nyeri, central Kenya, surrounded by women growing flowers and speciality legumes as an alternative to subsistence farming. The women in Nyeri grow high-value crops, from snow peas to flowers such as limonium and tuber rose, which they sell to larger growers as fillers for bouquets. More than 5,500 women's groups are active in the area, and many have asked for technical support on pesticide issues. "We're helping growers learn about safe alternatives in pest management," says Gallagher. "They haven't been fully informed about good practices, so they misuse pesticide compounds." Through integrated production and pest management, farmers are taught in field schools about improving their management of the ecosystem - to encourage natural predators of crop pests and reduce the volume of pesticides they use. Evans says these efforts are especially timely because of a growing trend in developed countries for consumers to make ethical choices in the marketplace. "Our members understand that it is in our own interest to preserve the environment," he says. Last week, the KFC celebrated its fourth annual Kenya Flower Day in Britain. "For the second year running, Kenya growers are the most important supplier of cut flowers into the European markets - ahead of Israel, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Colombia and Zambia," Evans stated. "Eighty per cent of all rose imports into Holland are from Africa." "Roses provide the bulk of sales, but mixed bouquets now equate to 11 per cent of sales, and almost all of these are for the British supermarkets," he added. Guest of honour at last week's Kenya Flower Day was the country's High Commissioner to the UK, Nancy Kirui, who expressed satisfaction at the quality and competitiveness of Kenyan flower exports. "It is a matter of pride to us that our flower growers and exporters are meeting the most exacting of standards - and beating the competition into the bargain," she said. In recent years, the Commonwealth has backed experimentation by developing countries with new export products to boost their foreign exchange earnings, and Kenya has particularly embraced non-traditional floricultural and horticultural products. KFC, an association of growers and exporters of cut flowers, now has 36 members, representing more than 70 per cent of all flowers and ornamentals exported from Kenya, according to the Commonwealth. It has also signed a co-operation agreement with Milieu Project Sierteelt, the internationally accredited Dutch certification body, which Evans described as "one of the most significant developments for Kenya's flower industry in recent years". The two, who will now represent more than 90 per cent of Kenya's export flower business, have pledged to "promote environmental awareness by awarding certificates to flower producers and exporters who work in a sustainable manner". The environmental and ethical demands of western consumers mean that growers in Europe and North America are more likely to lobby their governments to ban the import of products grown using methyl bromide. This could open a wider window for Kenya's green-fingered gardeners, according to the FAO - people like Jafeth Maina Wamwiri, the chair of Wamahoa ("of flowers") Farmer Field School in Kiambu near Nyeri. "The export crops have changed our lives," says Wamwiri. "We have new roofs, better homes, and our children can go to school. We need to make sure those people in other countries continue to buy our flowers."