Much-needed rainfall is coming to key production areas in Kenya, helping to get production back on track in a trouble-struck season.
Dr Stephen Mbithi, ceo of the Fresh Produce Exporters’ Association of Kenya (FPEAK), said: “This situation is rapidly changing for the better and we have had rain around Naivasha, and eastern parts.”
Conditions had been extremely dry until April this year and production volumes have been lower than usual. Mbithi said: “The main products that have been affected have been our export vegetables, more so than flowers. This is because most production of vegetables is in the hands of smallholders and they do not have the same capacity for water storage as the larger flower growers. Since smallholders produce 60-70 per cent of Kenyan beans for export, then this means output has been hit.”
However, FPEAK insists that the sector is in much better shape than in December and January, when exchange rate issues made it prohibitively expensive for a lot of senders to export to the UK and consignments were targeted instead at eurozone markets. Mbithi said: “It was almost a disaster in December and January but now that sterling is at $1.48 the situation is not so bad and exports to the UK are up and running again. The UK is our single-biggest market and accounts for 37 per cent of total sendings, so it is very important.”
Roughly 150,000 farmers are involved in horticultural exports in Kenya and rainfall over the coming weeks will be crucial so that reservoirs are replenished.
