Take advantage of multi-million dollar horticulture market

The youth have been urged to capitalise on West Africa’s multi-million dollar horticulture and flora market as a means of earning decent wages.

Sally Kosgei, a former Agriculture Minister of Kenya and Managing Director of Zena Roses Kenya, has opined that the country must take a re-look at the agriculture sector -- especially horticulture -- in order to position itself to take full advantage of the West African market.

“I think Ghana should take a relook at agriculture in general, because this is not working for Kenya alone but East Africa as a whole; and the climate here shows it can flourish here, too.

“If the youth are made to understand there can be a future in agriculture, in that they can sustain themselves and their families by paying specific attention to farming, I think that will be the starting point.”

The former Kenya Agriculture Minister also noted that efforts must also be targetted at enticing people into agriculture from an early stage.

“I think in a lot of countries, and it even used to be in our case also, there is the idea it is when you retire that you go into agriculture. It is when you start working that you should enter into agriculture and be very productive,” she added.

She made these comments in interview with B&FT on the sidelines of the Ghana Garden and Flower Show, organised by Stratcomm Africa as part of measures to promote horticulture in the country.

Currently, export of horticulture and flora products rakes in over 1billion US dollars annually for the Kenyan economy. The sector also employs directly 5,000 people and another 5 million indirectly.

The West African region currently imports much of its flora needs from Eastern Africa, South America and Europe.

This region and Ghana are yet to also realise the commercial potential of horticulture, and Sally Kosgei believes that Ghana can position itself to reap full benefits from the sector.

Commenting on what should be done to grow Ghana’s horticulture and agriculture in general, she advocated introduction of crop insurance and access to capital at reduced interest rates.

“Like any other business that has to have insurance, there has to be crop insurance; and if you have that a lot people will actually be interested because people are always looking to earn a living.

“You have to treat agriculture as a business, and one of the things that a business always needs to do is source loans. If you have loans whose interest is not going to kill you, you will borrow money -- and it needs to be at a steady interest,” Sally Kosgei said.

Kenya produces 40 percent of the flowers sold every day in the European market. This does not include vegetables and fruit, making it the number-one exporter of horticulture and flora products into Europe and one of the leading producers in the world.

Some of the flowers exported by Kenya into Europe and other markets include cut flowers, Fedora, Sanaa, euphoria, kiwi, carnations, statice, alstroemelia, gypisopilla among many others. The Kenyan horticulture sector has for the last 20 years maintained a 20 percent growth rate per annum.

According to Kosgei, it was necessary for the Kenya government to check, first of all, what type of chemicals/fertilisers were coming in to make sure the environment does not become polluted.

She underscored the role of government in the sector’s growth: “If you want a licence to export, there has to be an inspectorate to check those things and give out licences. If you are exporting to a country that needs a licence there should be a government that licences it; so there is a whole lot of chain linkages that government needs to achieve”.