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    Crops to grow for Ex­port to reap max­imum re­turns

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    A vari­ety of hor­ti­cul­tural crops which can be grown for ex­port by small­holder farm­ers to earn max­imum re­turns. 

    Small­holder farm­ers in­tend­ing to reap max­imum profits from their hor­ti­cul­tural farms can grow a vari­ety of crops that earn max­imum profits in the out­side mar­ket. Ac­cord­ing to the Ex­port Pro­mo­tion Coun­cil (EPC), Cut flowers, ve­get­ables, fresh fruits, herbs and spices form the ma­jor­ity of hor­ti­cul­tural ex­ports from Kenya to other coun­tries.

    Cut Flowers

    Cut flowers are flowers or flower buds that have been cut from the plant bear­ing it. Ac­cord­ing to the Kenya Flower Coun­cil, Kenya is the third largest ex­porter of cut flowers in the world, ac­count­ing for 38% of all sales in the European Union. Cut flowers from Kenya are famed for their long last­ing nature and also pop­u­lar in the United States and Rus­sia and sixty other coun­tries.

    More than 500,000 small­holder farm­ers in the coun­try de­pend on the trade ac­cord­ing to the Kenya Flower Coun­cil (KFC). The main pro­duc­tion areas are around Lake Na­ivasha, Mt. Kenya, Nairobi, Thika, Ki­ambu, Athi River, Kitale, Na­k­uru, Kericho, Nyandarua, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu and East­ern Kenya.

     The main cut flowers grown in Kenya are roses, carna­tions, and Al­stro­meria. Other flowers cul­tiv­ated in­clude, Gypso­philla, Lilies Eryngi­ums, ar­abicum, hyper­icum, Statice, a range of sum­mer flowers amongst many oth­ers. On the global front, a growth of 5% is an­ti­cip­ated every year over the next five years thus farm­ers ven­tur­ing into grow­ing of flowers are sure of ready mar­ket for their pro­duce.

    READ ALSO: Pine­apple ex­port mar­ket is wide for Kenya

     Ve­get­ables

    This is the second most im­port­ant product group within the hor­ti­cul­tural in­dustry, which by volume con­trib­utes to about 35% of total fresh pro­duce ex­ports ma­jor­ity of which comes from small­holder farm­ers. The main product is the French (green) beans, sugar snaps, snow peas and run­ner beans. Other ve­get­ables for gain­ing pop­ular­ity are Asian ve­get­ables such as Okra, Karela, dudhi, chilli and aurber­gine.

    READ ALSO: To­bacco farm­ers in Kenya to earn up to 4 times in ex­port mar­ket

     Fruits

    Major fruit ex­port products   in­clude avo­cadoes, man­goes, pine­apples, pas­sion fruits, ba­na­nas, and straw­berry. Ac­cord­ing to EPC, fruit ex­ports have been grow­ing slowly but stead­ily.

    READ ALSO: Ex­port Coun­cil's free product de­vel­op­ment course to give Kenyan farm­ers tips on how to pen­et­rate the rich ex­port mar­ket

    Herbs and Spices

    Due to in­creased health aware­ness by con­sumers’ world­wide, con­sump­tion of herbs and spices has in­creased. Kenya has been ex­port­ing herbs and spices for dec­ades and the de­mand for these products is bound to in­crease. The types of herbs ex­por­ted from Kenya in­clude lemon grass, basil, dill, sweet Mar­jaram, oregano, pars­ley, rose­mary, thyme, sage, chamo­mile, tar­ragon, etc. On the other hand, ex­ports of spices in­clude gar­lic, ginger, cori­ander, chil­lies, paprika, tur­meric and cumin.

     

     

     

     

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