Author: admin

By Mary Mwende Mbithi

South Africa’s founding father, Nelson Mandela, once said, ‘Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead…’ and indeed Porini Premium Flowers has every reason to celebrate as they mark a Decade since the start of operations!

The Inception
Ten years ago, in the peripheral region of Olenguruone, Molo in Nakuru County, what began as a noble idea was ultimately propelled into a reality. The inception of Porini Premium Flowers was a beautiful milestone for the founders of Isinya Roses Ltd, which by then was ten years old having started in the year 2001.

Porini, a Swahili word that means ‘wild,’ became the little sister to Isinya roses. And just like the wild flowers, ‘You must allow yourself to grow in all places people thought you never would;’ Porini Premium Flowers has continued to bloom in all aspects, bringing a new face to the flower industry. Last year, Porini turned a decade old, her sister farm Isinya Roses turned two decades old.

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Powdery Mildew

Experts in the fields of plant pathology, entomology, cultivation, climate, and technology work together with entrepreneurs and scientists from a range of fields. This collaborative approach combines innovations with the latest scientific knowledge and important and relevant questions from the professional field.

Healthy substrate and soil
A healthy substrate or soil is an important starting point for any healthy horticultural crop. Therefore, sustainable adaptations and cultivation techniques are important to create resilient cultivation systems. In resilient cultivation systems, more emphasis is put on preventing diseases as opposed to treating outbreaks. To achieve better disease prevention, a multi-disciplinary approach is needed. This requires optimal physical, chemical and biological characteristics in the rhizosphere and rooting environment so that better growth and higher resilience of the plant, as well as the control of pathogens, can be achieved.

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Intercontinental ocean shipping of agricultural products is considered more carbon and cost efficient and may provide more flexibility compared to air freight. The Kenyan government is actively supporting sea freight so that Kenya remains competitive in the global market. Although sea transport is already common practice for some Kenyan fruit (avocado, pineapple), for flower export, this option is still poorly explored.

Kenya exports a significant amount of products to the Netherlands, most of which are related to agriculture. Globally the main mode of transport for trade is ocean shipping, this is however not the case for Kenya. Most of it is transported by air as this is a quicker form of transportation. For agricultural products with a short shelf life such as flowers, fruits and vegetables this is especially important. In 2020 however, COVID-19 exposed the limitations of airfreight in Kenya. Passenger flights carry freight in the belly of the plane and due to a high number of flights being cancelled there was a huge shortfall of airfreight capacity. By increasing maritime shipping, Kenya can provide an alternative way of transporting goods, decrease costs and reduce its environmental footprint.

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Our total membership represents about 80% of the global floriculture trade, so we have a good representation of the international market of cut flowers and potted plants. In our industry, it is important to have a collective voice that gives visibility to important topics, such as market access and sustainability,” explains Sylvie Mamias, Secretary General of Union Fleurs. The international floriculture trade association is based in Brussels, as one of its key roles is to represent the common interests of its members towards the EU institutions. “The impact of the start of the pandemic is a good illustration of our work. When such challenges arise, we are able to get the attention of governments and policymakers to make them aware of the specificities of this industry and channel support.” She adds

Market access
Mamias explains that one of the top priorities for the association is to promote seamless markets and trade and remove trade barriers along the supply chain. “We aim to facilitate this from production to consumption, with all the steps in between. Therefore, anything that can impact the flow of products along the chain is something that we try to bring attention to towards people with influence.” Over the past 60 years, Union Fleurs has successfully advocated the interests of the floricultural trade on these topics and influenced policy-making, resulting in many achievements that nowadays benefit the floricultural trade in their daily operations, such as phytosanitary requirements, duty-free tariffs, and market access conditions. Concerning market access, there has been a number of important developments over the years. “Since last year, there has been growing pressure on logistics, as a result of the lack of transportation. However, there are also more structural and longerterm developments, such as the sustainability of transportation. How can we ensure that flowers can continue reaching markets, but in a more sustainable way? Diversifying means of transportation and utilizing more sea freight, for example, would significantly reduce carbon emissions. Concerning these longer-term issues, we as an association can have more of an influence, and we need to think together to promote solutions that benefit everyone along the supply chain.”

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The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service is training experts to help detect a new invasive mango mealybug pest.

According to the UN-Food and Agriculture Organization that is supporting in training the experts, early detection and early identification of the pest will give countries in Eastern Africa region an advantage to launch early action.

This will help mitigate the damaging effects of the pest. Mango mealybug feeds on the tree and produces droppings which make the leaves black and sticky. This lowers the strength of the tree and its production of mangoes. During heavy attacks, a whole part of the tree looks blackish in colour.

The mealybugs are easily spread through international trade in plant materials. The 18 diagnostic experts come from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda.

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Brussels based multi-stakeholder initiative the Floriculture Sustainability Initiative (FSI) new and more stringent environmental and social criteria for producers was introduced. This criterion entailed enhancing the scope of the FSI Basket of Standards.

Since 2013 FSI has been implementing a system in which transparent and benchmarked standards are recognized as solid basis for good practice. The standards meeting good agricultural and social practices are included in the FSI Basket of Standards and considered as international reference for responsibly produced and traded flowers and plants. To secure progress made, stimulate further improvement, and prepare for future requirements, new environmental and social requirements have been implemented as FSI Basket Benchmark criteria. Hence more aspects of sustainability are covered to the FSI benchmarks.

Since January 2021, the FSI Basket of Standards includes three scopes: GAP, Social and the new Environmental scope. To comply with the FSI requirements, producers need to be certified by at least one of the accepted standards in both GAP and Environmental scopes. Producers in risk countries will additionally have to obtain one of the accepted certificates for the Social scope, an unchanged requirement since 2013.

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“’Rules-based trade’ ensures that flower trade runs smoothly”

“Trade rules tend to be taken for granted. However, without rules, there would be mayhem. A trading system that is based on rules helps ensure that flower trade flows as smoothly, predictably, and freely as possible.” The World Trade Organization recently posted a video in which they focus on rules-based trade in the floriculture industry. In her recent LinkedIn post, Sylvie Mamias, Secretary General of the international floriculture trade association Union Fleurs, discusses the importance of WTO’s focus on floriculture trade.

Let’s talk trade
“How inspiring to see that the World Trade Organization chose flowers to illustrate its latest LetsTalkTrade video episode and explain the concept of ‘rules-based trade’ with a concrete example,” says Mamias. “A clear and useful reminder that a global trading system based on rules helps ensure that international trade flows as smoothly, predictably, transparently, and freely as possible. It also guarantees fairness, stability, and non-discrimination.”

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Freight, the taxation regime, and the EU plant health regulation were predicted to be the biggest challenges for the Kenyan floriculture in 2021, according to Kenya Flower Council’s (KFC) CEO Clement Tulezi. “When I was predicting that earlier in the year, I was not wrong. These three have remained the major challenges, and not much has changed since, unfortunately.” In this article, Tulezi goes over the current state of these challenges, as well as a new challenge the Kenyan flower industry is having to deal with and how Tulezi’s association is helping to find solutions and improvements.

20-25% of daily harvest thrown away
According to Tulezi, their top priority at the moment is freight. “In 2020, we temporarily lost demand for our industry, and the airlines found better business elsewhere because of Covid. As a result, the freight costs have gone up, and this situation has persisted. We are still short on capacity. There are still many cancellations. Almost every two days a flight to Nairobi is canceled, meaning that the capacity has not improved. The sector falls short of 1500 tons per week. As a result, the majority of growers and exporters are throwing away 20-25% of their daily harvest. Meanwhile, the demand for Kenyan flowers is good. These growers have invested a lot into their production, for which there is actually enough demand, but there is no space to transport it.”

In addition, the costs of transporting the Kenyan flowers have remained very high. “Moving produce from Nairobi costs on average $2,60 per kilo, whereas this only costs $1.50 for the Ethiopian market. When all other factors are held constant, how can the Kenyan market compete in the same market?”

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Insect monitoring forms an important part of integrated pest management programmes. It is crucial to identify pests accurately so that appropriate control measures can be taken. Insect traps are one way of observing the prevalence of insects.

Agricultural research and farming practices are increasingly driven by recognition of the need for sustainable agriculture and lower environmental impact.

Lately, we have main facilities, that boast of the latest technology and a local research and development team that enables them to address the specific needs of its clients. Their mission is to produce integrated and sustainable solutions for pest management that contribute to healthier and more productive agricultural systems. The facilities focus on the production and application of beneficial organisms used in biological pest control and IPM programmes. Insects will be massproduced to support the IPM programmes both locally and internationally.

Biological pest control uses living organisms to suppress pest densities, and is centred on using one type of organism, the ‘natural enemies’, to control another, the pest species.

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By Mary Mwende Mbithi

On the shores of Lake Naivasha, off North Lake Road in Kasarani area of Naivasha in Nakuru County lies a magnificent, well maintained farm with landmark, conspicuous greenhouses. Shalimar Flower Farm, a hotbed of horticulture thriving in Avocado and cutflower growing.

Inception and Production
The farm was started in 2002 on a 350 acre piece of land. It is one of the four farms enshrined under the umbrella of Shalimar Flowers (K.) Limited, (previously East Africa Growers). Having expanded from the initial 30 hectares, it currently, runs on 34 hectares massive piece of land. Shalimar Flowers (K.) Limited grows over 40 varieties of Roses mainly the T-Hybrid, Premium and Spray intermediate roses. ( in different farms ) They have incorporated the hydroponics system in their production. They also grow other flowers such as Gypsophilla, Solidago, Lipiedium, Chrysanthemum, Eucalyptus and Gerbera. They are also preparing to introduce Astroemeria and Hypericum flowers in their farms.

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