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Kenya's Horticultural sector at a glance
Kenya lies across the Equator along the eastern seaboard of Africa and has a landmass of 582,646 square kilometers. This gives Kenya a strategic location to export markets especially in Europe and the Middle East. Kenya shares a common border with Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda & Tanzania. Nairobi is the capital city and serves as a regional transport hub. The official language is English.
Kenya has varied ecological zones owing to its varying altitude, which allows diverse agricultural activities, key among these being horticultural farming.
In the past two decades horticulture has grown in importance to become one of Kenya's main foreign exchange earner and employer. Consignments of quality fresh cut flowers, fruits and vegetables are air freighted daily to various destinations around the world.
Leading Products
Horticulture is a compound name for numerous fresh farm products broadly classified as fruits, vegetables and cut flowers.
The main flowers exported from Kenya include Roses, Carnations, Statice, Alstroemeria, and a variety of summer flowers.
Under the vegetables category, French beans, snow & snap peas, Asian vegetables (Such as karella, chillies, aubergines and okra) dominate the export list.
Mangoes, avocadoes, passion fruit, are the most important export fruits.
Top Importers
The European Union (EU) is the principal importer of Kenya fresh produce. The Netherlands imports the bulk of flowers for sale through the auction system. Britain, Germany, The Netherlands and France are the major importers of fruits and vegetables.
The Middle East market is an important outlet market for Kenyan fruits.
The sector is controlled by the private sector, incorporating large and small-scale farmers and exporters scattered across the nation. While largely controlled by private investors, who have continued to export top quality fresh produce to the markets, the government has helped in policy and regulation of the sector.
Among the factors that have supported Kenya's rise in the fresh produce exports is conductive Equatorial climate which allows year-round production; fertile soils; a competitive labour force with good education and technical background.To ensure top quality produce reaches the market the exporters have brought in state-of- the-art technology. With two international airports, fresh produce can easily be shipped out. The Port of Mombasa handles some of the bulky produce.
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