23: o4: 2026
Masila Kanyingi
They say dog is the best man’s friend. My friend Rex is no more. Aflatoxin felled him. Purely a human error. A loss because someone did not do his work.
As I mourned him, I was confronted by a subject I often avoid: loss. It unsettles, disrupts, and, in my
case, even sent my gastro system into revolt, requiring a prescription for something as simpleas an antacid. That is the quiet violence of loss. It seeps beyond the moment and settles into the body But Rex’s death is not an isolated tragedy. It mirrors a broader, more troubling pattern. Across our agricultural systems, losses are being manufactured—not by nature, but by negligence and greed. Unscrupulous traders flood the market with adulterated crop protection products. Substandard inputs, from cartons to nutrition solutions, compromise quality before produce even leaves the farm. These are preventable failures.
The consequences are predictable and painful. Growers lose both crop and capital. Pest and disease pressure escalates despite investment. The sprayer is blamed. The production manager may be dismissed. Investors absorb the shock as blood pressure rises alongside financial losses. Families lose livelihoods. The wider economy absorbs the strain. All because someone, somewhere, chose not to do their job.
Loss in floriculture is often framed in numbers—rejected consignments, volatile prices, post-harvest waste. But the deeper issue is systemic failure. When standards collapse, everyone pays.
This is where the conversation must shift. Loss should not be accepted as routine where it is preventable. Accountability must be enforced across the value chain. Regulation must function. Integrity must matter.
If we interrogate what is being lost and why, we move from passive acceptance to deliberate correction. The industry does not lack resilience. It lacks consistent responsibility. And until that is addressed, loss will remain less a misfortune—and more a choice.