Reminiscing the year 2020 for Kenya flower growers

BY STEVEN MULANDA

The year 2020 is one that will arguably be recalled by flower growers for many years to come. It started on a promising note for most growers in Kenya, with good weather in January leading to a good production of flowers for the Valentine occasion. The flower prices during the occasion were promising and growers were optimistic of a better year compared to the previous ones. However, the year went south to disappointment of all growers.

In early march, as the preparations of International Women’s Day and Easter holidays geared on, news started trickling in of a certain virus; Corona. The virus was reported in the media as causing major havoc in China. To many this was farfetched news and for such a pandemic that would affect the whole world, it was unfathomable.

Reality of the pandemic started dawning when china announced lockdown leading to cancellation of orders by the Chinese customers. Within no time lockdown of Europe, Russia and many other export destinations was announced. The virus was now causing major havoc globally spreading like a bush fire and Kenya had reported its first case. What followed was massive cancellation of orders by almost all clients leaving growers dejected.

Bernard Muthuri, sales Manager at Sosiani, one of the farms under the Zena Roses brand, said with the lockdown of economies worldwide and closing of borders, there were very limited cargo spaces to transport the few orders they were receiving during the time. The auction market totally crashed leading to destruction of many flowers and prices hitting rocks bottom. Most growers resorted to scaling down their operations resulting to massive layoffs and few staff that remained were subjected to pay cuts. “Many farms stopped harvesting, fertigation and even taking care of pests and diseases. It was a state of panic and for the first time in history, airplanes where shut and no global movement,” he explains.

At the beginning of May; there was a demand for roses at the Dutch auction and orders from Russia and Australia started trickling but few growers had the crop to supply the market. This led to escalation of prices at the market and few lucky growers who had the crop managed to rope in some few coins for operations.

“When the demand of flowers increased, many growers rushed to tend to the abandoned farms as there was a windfall of prices at the market. The weather was also good and most economies globally were opening up. Unfortunately, this led to overproduction in August and the prices plummeted,” says Bernard.

In the month of October, the second wave of Covid-19 was reported in most countries. Country like France which is a bigger buyer of flowers from the auction market announced its second lockdown and prices dropped while flower orders were being minimal though not drastic as when the pandemic hit first.

The pandemic is still with us but most growers are upbeat that the situation will improve since there are development of vaccinations. “Next year will definitely be a good year. As an industry we have had many challenges in the past. You can recall there was the introduction 16 per cent VAT on pesticides that continues to affect the margins of the growers up to date. High fertilizer and pesticides costs, prohibitive cost of energy, delayed VAT refunds and the high freight costs due to the volumetric weight charging formula that was introduced in 2018 and you have a picture of how tough it has become to grow flowers in Kenya, though we have always managed to stay afloat,” Bernard said.

In his sentiments, George Simiyu the Quality Assurance Manager at Simbi Roses opines that the industr was greatly affected when the Covid 19 news came in as everyone was on a panic mood but at the moment there is a sigh of relief as orders of flowers are slowly coming in.

“With the lockdown not only did we lose the market but the quality of flowers as well. For instance, most of the fertilizers and some pesticides we apply on the flowers are imported and we could not ship them at that time. This affected the quality of the roses and hence we had to cut short on the operations and declare some of our able workers redundant,” Simiyu said.
He is relieved though that the effect is not as bad as it was in March and April, as Simbi Flowers has seen an increase in the number of orders. Currently they are exporting 100,000 cut stems per day and as the festive season fast approaches, there are more orders from Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands etc. “We have had queries from some of our clients on how safe is our produce but we would like to assure them the Ministry of Health has been conducting risk assessment on the flowers and creating awareness on our staff about the virus to prevent psychological torture while us as a company we are providing them with facemask, sanitizers and Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) where necessary,” Simiyu noted.