Resilience has become a virtue in flower growing, but at what cost? It’s time to stop celebrating survival and start questioning the systems that keep growers and exporters in crisis mode.
By Mᴀʀʏ Mᴡᴇɴᴅᴇ,
We love to talk about resilience. Every storm, every export disruption, and every regulatory surprise is met with the same applause for growers and exporters who somehow find a way through. But at what cost?
Enough with the resilience speeches. Every time this industry hits a rough patch, someone steps up to praise the growers, exporters, and workers for their ability to hang on. As if surviving impossible conditions is something to celebrate.
There’s a fine line between celebrating resilience and excusing the conditions that demand it. For years, flower growers have absorbed the pressure of volatile markets, unpredictable freight costs, shifting trade rules, and endless demands for sustainability with little room to breathe. Each time the industry weathers another blow, we call it inspiring but rarely ask why survival has become such a defining feature of flower growing.
As if enduring difficult conditions without complaint is a badge of honor. Resilience is not a business strategy. It is a symptom of an ecosystem that too often leaves growers and exporters to fend for themselves, reacting to crises instead of being protected from them. It’s how pressure gets passed down while decisions stay at the top.
When freight rates spike overnight, ‘you’re resilient‘. When new phytosanitary regulations land with zero lead time, ‘you’re resilient’, when tariffs change without warning? ‘Stay resilient,’ or when buyers and consumers shift their terms and preferences, ‘resilience‘. The system expects growers to adjust. The question is, how long can growers keep applauding that without addressing the root problems?
The future of growing won’t be built on who can endure the longest. It will depend on creating fairer trade systems and predictable supply chains that value product quality and labour as much as market speed. Stop praising people for surviving broken systems and start fixing them.
Got thoughts on this? Drop us a line at editor@floriculture.co.ke