The milestones of Kenya Flower Council in 20 years since inception
At each stage in progression, we tend to reassess, re-balance our life values and priorities. To remember where you started, the far you have come and to count your accomplishments is helpful in staying on course. This is what is driving Kenya Flower Council at their 20 years anniversary. Having begun their operations in 1996 with a single employee and at a small room in a garage. The function gives the council a unique opportunity to appreciate the Association, its esteemed members, partners, friends and the numerous milestones achieved over the past 20 years.
Over the two decades, Kenya Flower Council has grown in stature providing exemplary services in industry representation, promotions and market access pegged onto an internationally accredited quality assurance scheme.
The Organization is at the fore front in championing enabling business environment of flower farms while enabling market access as it promotes the Kenyan flower as a brand.
In an interview with Hortfresh Journal Kenya Flower Council CEO Mrs. Jane Ngige highlighted that the Kenya Flower Council Certification Scheme and Quality Management Systems is accredited by the South African National Accreditation Systems (SANAS), as a Certification Body (C49), in accordance with ISO/IEC 17065., meaning they are authentic.
‘’We are a voluntary association of independent growers and exporters of cut-flower as well as ornamentals and our main aim is fostering responsible and safe production of flowers in the Country, with due consideration of workers welfare and protection of the environment’’ she explained.
The council, has a working model which consists of a board, certification committee, technical committee, the secretariat, producer members, associate members and other stakeholders. The producer members subscribe to the KFC Flowers & Ornamentals Sustainability Standard (FOSS), a living document, which guides the producers in the production process on human resource management, health & safety, crop production, environment protection, post-harvest management, and employee capacity building.
The Sustainability Standard, which is actually a living document, makes the council stay abreast with industry dynamics. Benchmarking the Certification Scheme to other codes such as Global Gap, Fair Flowers Fair Plants, Tescos Nurture, KS- 1758 in addition to 23 different Kenya Government statutes, provides an opportunity to conduct audits as a measure of effective and efficient service to members.
The standard is regarded as one of the best standards, in the floriculture industry globally. The Kenya Flower Council Certification Scheme: Quality Systems Regulations (QSR), Flowers and Ornamental Sustainability Standard (FOSS) underwent rigorous standards mapping processes by the International Trade Center in Brussels and emerged as one of the leading standards globally. “It took me 2 weeks to believe after reading the news. I have been to different countries of which Kenya we are a head but I didn’t expect this,” explained Jane.
The International Trade Center (ITC) and Floriculture Sustainability Initiative (FSI) based the process on sophisticated technical comparisons processes of key industry parameters of quality, mainly environmental stewardship, social accountability, management ethics and product quality to compare and rate the standard as one of the leading standards amongst the 7 initial participating standards in February, 2016. The other 7 participating standards are industry standards from the U.K, U.S.A, Holland, Columbia and Ethiopia.
Read the full article in Hortfresh Journal May – June 2016 edition
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