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    How an idea bloomed into a flower en­ter­prise

    Be­hind the Sh10,000 monthly profit each mem­ber of a self help group in Nyeri county earns, and a bloom­ing flower busi­ness is the sweat and toil story of 11 young people who two years ago had the will but no means to ac­tu­al­ize the will.

    The mem­bers aged between 22 and 40 years be­long­ing to Endarasha Char­ity High­land Self-Help Group in Kieni West dis­trict, Nyeri County, went for a loan from the Youth En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Fund (YEDF) in 2012. Their idea of ven­tur­ing into flo­ri­cul­ture had already re­ceived sup­port from a local com­pany which agreed to sup­ply them with seed­lings and buy their flowers.

    The group, ini­ti­ated in 2012 with the aim of bring­ing the youth of Char­ity vil­lage to­gether, had in mind a pro­ject which would gen­er­ate in­come and help them fight run­away con­sump­tion of il­li­cit brews and drug abuse among their age-mates.
    “Our idea was to set up a flower pro­ject so that we could em­power ourselves,” said group chair­man God­frey Mwangi.
    The idea of ven­tur­ing into flo­ri­cul­ture was born after a local com­pany, Wil­mar Flowers Lim­ited, bought them seeds of ornis flowers and prom­ised to buy their har­vests for ex­port.

    “We have been cul­tiv­at­ing flowers since then and they have been buy­ing them from us” he said. The ornis vari­ety is easier and cheaper to man­age than the rose vari­ety, which must be grown under spe­cial con­di­tions in green­houses and on a large scale for one to make re­turns. Ornis flowers are grown in an open field under a shade, which can be made of nets or even poly­thene bags. Ac­cord­ing to Mr Mwangi, the flowers are ex­por­ted to Hol­land, from where they are re­dis­trib­uted to other European mar­kets.

    The flower are meas­ured in heights of 30 cen­ti­metres at a local price of Sh1.50 per stem. Every week the group har­vests between 2,000 to 3,000 stems. “We har­vest them once a week and we ex­pect to do this for the next two years,” he said. Mr Mwangi said the longer the stem, the higher the price.

    He said that once the flowers have ma­tured they can be har­ves­ted for two years be­fore plant­ing them afresh.
    The flowers take between four and six months to ma­ture. Each mem­ber earns between Sh8,000 and Sh10,000 per month.
    “Every mem­ber has his or her own por­tion which they take care of,” said Mr Mwangi. Prices are de­term­ined by the in­ter­na­tional mar­ket and sea­sons.

    Dur­ing the high sea­son, Mr Mwangi said, they make good money, but in the low sea­son — July and Au­gust when it’s sum­mer in Europe — sales drop. This is be­cause European coun­tries pro­duce their own flowers when the cli­mate is fa­vour­able.

    The pub­lic re­la­tions man­ager for the Youth En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Fund, Mr Ben­son Muthendi, while tour­ing the group’s farm in Endarasha, said that mem­bers had ap­proached them say­ing they had found a firm will­ing to buy their flowers.
    Mr Muthendi said the group re­ques­ted the fund to give them a loan. He said their of­ficers went to Endarasha, in­spec­ted the land and sort ex­pert opin­ion from area ag­ri­cul­tural ex­ten­sion of­ficers who as­sured them that the flower pro­ject was vi­able.

    “We gave them a loan of Sh50,000 and the group has since re­paid the money. They came back and bor­rowed an­other Sh360,000 which the group has been re­pay­ing for the last six months,” said Mr Muthendi.
    The fund has given out 20 green­houses to vari­ous groups in Nyeri County, totalling about Sh5 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial.

    YEDF has set aside Sh350 mil­lion to train the youths in agri-busi­ness and en­able them to ven­ture into the sec­tor.
    Out of the amount Sh100 mil­lion will go to­wards green­house farm­ing while Sh250 mil­lion will be used to di­ver­sify farm­ing. Mr Muthendi said that agri-busi­ness was the only sure way to cre­ate jobs for, and em­power, young people.
    “Some of the youth groups such as this one have ven­tured into flo­ri­cul­ture which is a good idea since there is a ready mar­ket both loc­ally and in for­eign mar­kets,” he said.

    He said that the fund was en­cour­aging young people to ven­ture into the farm­ing since all that youths need is a piece of land, a loan and skills. “What they need is writ­ten au­thor­ity from an owner of land stat­ing that he or she has au­thor­ised them to use it for a cer­tain period,” said Mr Muthendi. He said that the fund provides groups with a loan and train­ing and links them with the mar­ket.

    Milka Wange­chi Karanja, an­other group mem­ber, urged youths to stop re­ly­ing on search­ing for white-col­lar jobs and  ven­ture into agri-busi­ness.“Em­brace agri-busi­ness and don’t shy away from farm­ing, you can make good and quick money from the busi­ness,” she said.

    She urged par­ents to con­sider re­leas­ing land to their chil­dren to en­cour­age them ven­ture into agri-busi­ness.

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