Category: Featured Articles Jan – Feb 2019

In recent years, the Russian government has made self-sufficiency a top priority. This has already resulted in a large number of new greenhouse projects for vegetable cultivation. But also in flowers and plants, Russia aims to become less dependent on imports. That’s not all bad news for foreign companies, however. The expansion of domestic growers opens up opportunities for suppliers from other countries, while Russia’s increasingly affluent population drives up demand for flowers and plants, both from within the country and abroad.

It’s not just vegetable greenhouses that are popping up across the country – Russian ornamental growers are doing good business too, expanding for the sake of self-sufficiency. For instance, a new greenhouse in Saint Petersburg is to meet up to 60% of the city’s demand in flowers for flowerbeds. A few months later, in June 2018, construction of a tulip greenhouse near Smolensk was announced. Other recent expansions include a rose greenhouse in North Ossetia, while a rose grower near Moscow just announced a 6 hectare expansion.

These are just a few examples that show how the flower business in Russia is stabilizing – a development also noticed by the organizers of the annual FlowersExpo, who are seeing an increasing number of domestic participants.

Opportunities for suppliers
These expansions offer chances for suppliers. One such supplier, Schneider, is seeing constant growth in the Russian market. As Zsófia Simó, marketing & communication specialist at the company,said: “Russian growers always strive to expand their businesses and Schneider youngplants is happy to provide valuable knowledge and advice in order to allow them to reach their goals.”

This sentiment was echoed on the trade show floor, where it became apparent that several growers were expanding or planning to expand their greenhouses. In turn, the breeders at the show also reported seeing an increasing interest for their varieties from the Russian growers.

Most consumers do not think ordinarily about the origin of the cut flowers they purchase. Though many people are informed, conscious consumers who do know

Lack of information sharing among the players in the fresh produce value chain has been identified as a key set back in the industry, degrading

At the China International Import Expo, flowers becomes an important exhibit and decoration in the Kenya Pavilion. Fourth Largest Fresh Cut Flower Exporter The geographical advantage of Lake Naivasha in Kenya is suitable for roses’ growth. The roses have a strong competitive edge in international flower market! In Kenya, the flower industry has become an important pillar of Kenyan economy after tourism and tea. As the world’s fourth largest exporter of fresh cut flowers, Kenya’s flower industry is mainly served for the European market, and nearly half of it is sold to the world through the Dutch auction market.

New Favorite for China’s Consumers
In recent years, the flower consumption has risen so fast that domestic supply has been unable to match the demand. The increasing consumption gives rise to the sales of high-quality imported flowers. Kenyan flowers, as medium and high-end variety in China, have become the new favorite in suppliers and consumers.

• National carrier may fly flowers through Miami, L.A. or NYC
• New air-services deal would open way for export push

Ethiopia’s burgeoning flower-growing industry is setting its sights on the U.S. in a bid to break the dominance of Latin American producers in supplying roses and other blooms to the world’s largest economy.

State-owned Ethiopian Airlines Enterprise is evaluating freighter flights through Miami — the main entry point for U.S. flower imports — Los Angeles or New York, regional manager Girum Abebe said in an interview. The company currently transports stems there only in the bellies of passenger jets.

Ethiopia has become a major force in global floriculture in the past two decades, exploiting a tropical high-altitude climate that provides yearround natural light combined with hot days and cold nights perfect for bringing plants into bloom. The conditions mirror those found in the Andes, where growers in Ecuador and Colombia currently dominate flower exports to the U.S.

“Ten or 15 years ago Ethiopia was not exporting a single rose, but now we have earned our position in the world market,” Girum said. “North America has been the major importer of horticulture products from other parts of the world, so we want to have part of that.”

Ethiopian flower exports are currently focused on Europe, and have made the country Africa’s secondbiggest producer after Kenya and fourth-equal worldwide, according to Rabobank research. About 80 percent of Ethiopian production is flown to the Netherlands, the center of the global flower trade, and re-exported from there. ‘Bigger Blooms’ ‘

What is your personal back ground?
I have a degree in Bachelors of Science with Majors in Zoology and thereby entomology is what has landed me in the industry.

Why did you choose to be an agronomist?
I didn’t choose to be an agronomist, my former boss, Nikolai saw the potential in me first and send me to the field to go and do trials with a product I had pioneered for the market in his company. When I did the trials and the product worked, I was thereby told to go and market the product. Being in the field and controlling pests became interesting and I am loving every bit of it that is offering solutions to farmers.

How long have you been working with farmers?
This is my eighth year working with farmers both in flowers, cereals, vegetables and fruits.

Africa 2018 Focusses on Benchmarking Cold Chain Logistics and Technology The third edition of Flower Logistics Africa had a full house representing a crosssection of

Panalpina has doubled its cold storage space at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, with the aim of growing the perishable volumes flown out of Kenya. The facility has been expanded by 1,500 m2 and offers Jomo Kenyatta International Airport’s only dedicated loading bays for skidded or palletised cargo and with separate cold rooms to manage specific temperature requirements. Panalpina aims to grow its business in Kenya from the current 65,000 tons of flowers, fruits, and vegetables it moves, to more than 80,000 by 2020.

“This facility will provide many business opportunities for our customers to pursue in [Kenya], the region and the world, and that is what we are looking to achieve – solutions that foster growth for our customers, Panalpina and the communities where we operate,” said Stefan Karlen, president and chief executive of Panalpina.

The company has been expanding its presence in the perishables market over the last few years, with the sector seen as useful for providing regular and consistent back-haul traffic. Panalpina first started operations in Nairobi in 2015 with a team of five people, which soon grew to 200 with the acquisition of Airflo, and later to 350 with that of Air Connection.

Unless the two bickering parties in this messy divorce reach an agreement bringing about some less disruptive arrangement, goods travelling across the channel are likely to confront customs

Summary

• The European Union has a trade agreement with Kenya that enables imports of flowers free of tariffs.
• After Brexit, Britain will have to negotiate its own arrangement with Kenya and other exporters.
• Until a deal is struck, flowers sent from Kenya to Britain would stand to incur tariffs of nearly 7 percent, a potential shock for an industry that has become a major source of jobs in the East African nation. checks and sanitary inspections.

Far removed from the political posturing and brinkmanship that capture most of the attention in Britain’s long and tedious departure from the European Union, Yme Pasma is deeply enmeshed in the mother of all logistical problems.

He is the chief operating officer of Royal FloraHolland, a marketplace where some 12 billion flowers and plants are sold a year — more than one-third of the worldwide trade in such blooms. Inside hulking warehouses near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in the town of Aalsmeer, Royal FloraHolland operates a flower auction and a distribution centre.

A fleet of computer-guided forklifts whisks buckets of roses, boxes of amaryllis and other foliage — some grown in Holland, some flown in from Africa, Asia and Latin America — toward loading docks, to be placed on trucks and shipped to customers worldwide.

The scent of flowers is pervasive, a weirdly anomalous whiff of perfume amid the clatter of machinery.

Nearly $1 billion worth of this product a year is destined for the United Kingdom, a realm that today is still part of the European Union. Flowers arriving from outside Europe can clear customs and then proceed unhindered to Britain.

Summary

• The decision by KQ to dedicate the New York route to passengers, with only five tonnes allocated to cargo, means Kenya’s flower industry cannot penetrate the US market.
• There is also the issue of the return flight flying back empty because Kenya’s main imports from the US are bulk machinery, cereals and aircraft that are shipped here.
• The emergence of new cut flower producers, particularly Ethiopia, is causing jitters that Kenya’s dominance is diminishing, albeit slowly.

In spite of optimism and excitement after national carrier Kenya Airways (KQ) started direct flights to the US in October, the airline’s business strategy of focusing on passengers as opposed to cargo has dashed the hopes of the flower industry of targeting the market that has remained elusive.

This is bad news for the industry which despite being the second leading foreign exchange earner after tea, is grappling with a myriad of challenges that are threatening the country’s position as Africa’s leading producer of cut flowers.

The sector is currently dealing with challenges ranging from a fertiliser importation crisis, increase in input taxes, delays in tax refunds, stringent phytosanitary requirements in the European Union (EU) market, new demands on fumigation by key market Australia to intensifying competition from emerging flower producers like Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

In the midst of these predicaments, the decision by KQ to dedicate the new route specifically to passengers, with only five tonnes allocated to cargo, means the flower industry cannot count on the national carrier to penetrate the US market.