Hass avocado farmers in Kenya can earn over two times as compared to their peers growing other varieties such as feurte, keitt, and pinkerton among others due to the variety’s high demand in the international market.

can Data from Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (Kephis) indicates that, in 2018-2019 financial year, the country exported around 80,000 tons of avocados, valued at approximately Sh10bn which is double the amount exported in 2016. Hass variety represented 70 per cent, Fuerte 25 per cent, and the local Kenyan Kienyeji, which is also a known as green-skin variety, five per cent.

To this end, the national government and some county governments have in the recent past encouraged farmers to dive in this lucrative business with a keen interest on Hass avocados. Farmers in the past had been producing the Kienyeji and the fuerte avocados which don’t fetch good prices in the market.

Hass is in high demand compared to other varieties because of their nutritional value, for instant, two or three slices of  Hass avocado contain 4.6 grams of fat and the same portion of a regular avocado contains an estimate of three grams of fat.

Further, the Hass avocado has a higher shelf life due to its rough skin compared to other varieties

For these reasons, Hass avocado fetches good prices in the market with farmers selling at Sh10 per fruit plus annual bonus from Kakuzi compared to three shilling for fuerte.

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Private players in the sector are also not left behind in supporting farmers to grow Hass avocadoes. Fair Trade Enterprises Limited, a social enterprise fresh produce exporter has been contracting farmers to grow the variety.

According to Bernard Kimutai, an agronomist at the firm, Hass avocadoes, especially the grafted ones take 3-4 years to flourish and can bear 1,000 fruits per tree per year; the latter takes about six years to mature.

“Other than the numerous benefits, the variety takes less space to grow in allowing farmers with small pieces of land to gainfully participate in this business. Farmers can also diversify their agricultural activities as it can grow together with other plants without taking much space thus ensuring cash flow throughout the year for the farmers.”

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Government support

Another reason why farmers should plant Hass avocado is the overwhelming support from the national government as it has negotiated with companies like Kakuzi to buy directly from farmers thereby eliminating the middlemen who have been a thorn on the farmers’ skin.

 Further, the national government through KEPHIS has been actively involved in monitoring and educating farmers and exporters on global market standards and regulations compliance.

May last year, the Kenyan government signed a trade deal with China during President Uhuru Kenyatta visit to china where Kenya will be exporting frozen Hass avocado to China. If implemented, 1.5 billion Chinese consumers will take in more than 40 per cent of Kenya avocado produce.

Earlier this month, Trade Principle Secretary Chris Kiptoo announced that China, after negotiation with the national government has reduced the levies on Kenyan avocados from 30% to seven percent which will enable many farmers to export with no much strain.

County governments such as Murang’a and Nyeri offer free grafted Hass avocados seedlings to farmers and give extension services.

Murang’a  Governor Mwangi  Wa Iria  in 2019 said his government will provide farmers with 1m hass avocado seedlings  annually with an aim of maximizing on production  by 2025 as reports indicates  that the County earns Sh2.5billion from hass fruits annually. Further, the county has grouped 200,000 farmers into a giant County Hass avocado producer group in a bid to increase their bargaining power in the market.

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According to Nyeri CEC Agriculture James wachihi, the county government distributed 81,000 and 52,602 Kephis and Horticultural Crop Directorate (HCD} certified Hass avocado seedlings in 2018 and 2019 respectively. To further support the farmers, the county government organized a farmers’ workshop on hass avocado on 19^th June 2019 to equip farmers with the necessary skills on profitable avocado farming.

With players like the Avocado Society of Kenya, a member of World Avocado Congress, farmers who had no previous connection in the market can now connect with other players in this sectors such as exporters, others growers and  value –chain  players which can facilitate knowledge transfer among stakeholders.

The society also facilitates workshops for farmers and exporters and offers subsidized hass tree seedlings to its registered farmers

With the support from both levels of governments and other organizations coupled with readily available markets, many farmers have ventured in this venture evening attracting counties that didn’t practice this kind of farming before such as Uasin Gishu County which is educating farmers on the need to diversify agriculture by growing high value crops with avocado, coffee and macadamia.

Avocado farming is mainly done in Nyeri, Murang’a, Meru,Kiambu ,Kisii,Naivasha Nakuru and Eldoret.

The countries that import Kenya avocados are mainly in Europe, namely France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Russia. There is also a substantial market for Kenya avocado exports in the Middle East especially in UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon and Egypt. Other upcoming markets include Singapore and Hong Kong.

RELATED CONTENT: Dubai fresh produce importer looking for avocado, orange and dragon fruits suppliers

Kenya produces 115,000 metric tons of avocados annually and 70% produced by the small scale farmers with three quarter of it being exported.

This drastic change has been mainly attributed to technological advances called ‘refeer’ by Maersk lines which has made it possible to transport the Kenyan avocados  beyond the middle east to the European market.

According to a 2019 half year survey shared at the World Avocado Congress in Columbia September 2019, Kenya has overtaken South Africa in the production of the fruit. Kenya grows a variety of avocados namely the Hass, Fuerte , indigenous varieties (Kienyeji), and the Piketon although in small quantities.

The survey also ranked Kenya as seventh in the list of leading exporters of avocado in 2018 having got $ 118 million (Sh11.8 billion) in export earnings. The list ranked Mexico first with   $2.4 billion, followed by Netherlands ($ 733.8 billion), Peru ($ 722.8m) in third, Spain ($ 346 m), Chile ($ 323.2 m), the USA ($ 179 m).

By George P. Munene

After 13 years in the avi­ation sec­tor, re­tired Cap­tain Dan Ng'ong'a has meshed his new­found pas­sion for ag­ri­cul­ture and his avi­ation back­ground to help farm­ers mas­ter pre­ci­sion ag­ri­cul­ture that helps them raise their yields and cut on costs.

“A drone fit­ted with an 18-liter tank can cover five acres of farm­land in just 15 minutes. This is com­pared to con­ven­tional human spray­ing that takes 4-5 hours and up to three rounds of spray­ing with a 20-liter knap­sack sprayer to cover an acre of land. This means agro­chem­ic­als that would for ex­ample last a month can be stretched to last for two months in­stead,” Ng'ong'a ex­plains.

“As a farmer my­self (he runs Dan­ico Ven­tures—a mixed farm loc­ated at Emakoko, Kiten­gela) I am all too aware of the major pain points for Kenyan farm­ers; how to im­prove yields while man­aging the cost of pro­duc­tion,” he says.   

Re­lated News: In­teg­rat­ing tech­no­logy solu­tions to pro­duce bet­ter yields for farm­ers

Re­lated News: Kenya’s in­creas­ing ag­ri­cul­tural in­nov­a­tions poised to boost food se­cur­ity

Hav­ing got­ten his drone li­cense and re­gistered his busi­ness, the former Kenya Air­ways pilot has em­barked on help­ing trans­form Africa’s ag­ri­cul­tural land­scape fo­cused on un­earth­ing prac­tical solu­tions for small-scale farm hold­ers' that help im­prove their bot­tom line.

Most of Africa's pop­u­la­tion is, dir­ectly and in­dir­ectly, de­pend­ent on ag­ri­cul­ture, prac­ticed mostly by small-holder farm­ers and the mul­ti­plier ef­fect of hav­ing mar­ginal gains in the sec­tor could be trans­form­a­tional for the con­tin­ent he con­tends.

“We are fo­cused on of­fer­ing the right value pro­pos­i­tion to small-scale farm­ers: col­lat­ing 20 farm­ers pay­ing Sh2000 each for a ser­vice rather than one large scale farmer pay­ing a sim­ilar amount will have a lar­ger foot­print in the trans­form­a­tion of Africa's ag­ri­cul­ture,” Dan elu­cid­ates.

Dan­ico Drones of­fers a bou­quet ser­vice; from soil test­ing and ana­lysis, crop scout­ing and crop spray­ing. 

The com­pany uses scan­ning tech­no­logy for soil tests mean­ing the res­ults are in­stant­an­eous; they're re­ceived after just five minutes, un­like the usual KALRO res­ults which take two weeks. As stan­dalone samples for an acre soil tests cost farm­ers Sh2000.

“We en­cour­age small­holder farm­ers to pool to­gether to make it eco­nom­ic­ally feas­ible to reach re­gions fur­ther out from where we are headquartered in Nairobi,” Ng'ong'a says.

For scout­ing ser­vices, a drone can cover two acres in just five minutes—it takes real-time aer­ial pic­tures of a farm which are then stitched onto a map which forms the basis of ana­lysis. This gives the farmer the abil­ity to bet­ter plan their farm. 

For plant pest and plant dis­eases ana­lysis they are able to re­flect dif­fer­ent amounts of vis­ible light (VIS), near-in­frared (NIR) light VIS and NIR light, which are a meas­ure of how healthy plants are. By meas­ur­ing the changes in vis­ible and NIR light re­flec­ted from a crop, farm­ers can spot po­ten­tial health is­sues in their crop. Un­manned aer­ial vehicles also allow for tar­geted spray­ing—zero­ing in on the exact area a farmer should be look­ing to apply agro­chem­ic­als on their farm. This helps save on chem­ical ap­plic­a­tion costs and is use­ful for farm­ers look­ing to min­im­ise their use of chem­ic­als. The tech­no­logy also in­teg­rates rem­ed­ies for crop stresses such as dis­eases which can be sought through mo­bile crop ad­vis­ory apps.

Farm­ers also get an exact bear­ing on the plant pop­u­la­tion on their farm al­low­ing them to have an ac­cur­ate read­ing of their ex­pec­ted yield. Other im­port­ant meas­ures are weed ana­lysis and ag­ri­cul­ture ap­plic­a­tions such as fer­til­izer, pesti­cides, and water dis­tri­bu­tion.

All this al­lows farm­ers to prac­tice pre­ci­sion ag­ri­cul­ture en­sur­ing in­puts – nu­tri­ents, pesti­cides, seeds or water are used with ex­actitude and stra­tegic­ally im­prov­ing pro­ductiv­ity and re­source ef­fi­ciency, re­du­cing costs and ex­ert­ing min­imal en­vir­on­mental im­pact.

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Re­lated News: Af­ford­able in­ter­net en­abling farm­ers im­prove food pro­duc­tion

Aer­ial sur­vey ren­der­ing cost Shs 5,000 with crop scout­ing and ana­lysis cost­ing a fur­ther Sh5,000 per acre. Crop spray­ing cost Sh 2,500 for every acre with a min­imum acre­age of four acres

“With time the data bank we hope to col­lect can also be use­ful to na­tional and county gov­ern­ments for bet­ter plan­ning by help­ing de­term­ine the most im­pact­ful ag­ri­cul­tural in­ter­ven­tions as well as private play­ers such as ag­ri­cul­tural in­sur­ance firms in help­ing set premi­ums,” says Dan.

The com­pany is cur­rently draft­ing an op­er­a­tional plan for use of drones in com­bat­ing the lo­cust men­ace that has swarmed East Africa.  

Dan­ico Drone Ser­vices:

 +254733271175

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