Avocado fruits from Kenya have continued to dominate the international market due to their high quality,” he avers. To export avocado to the international market, farmers must be certified by government bodies including Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service and Exports Promotion Council.For smallholders, the best place to start is by vetting the export company to partner with and verifying its registration at the Horticultural Crops Directorate (HCD) as an exporter.
Want to join the avocado train? Here are some ideas:
Seedlings propagation
This involves grafting seedlings for sale. Seedlings have been in high demand. For example, by the end of last year, the Nakuru County government had distributed more than 113,000 avocado seedlings to 6,200 farmers. Seedlings of grafted Hass and Fuerte varieties are sold for between Ksh150 to Ksh400, depending on the location. To do this business, it is advisable to register with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (Kephis), which handles the global gap certification. Avocado contract farming Farmers can form co-operatives to grow avocadoes for sale to companies involved in the export business.
This is already happening. Companies such as Sunripe, Shanghai Greenchain, Kakuzi and EPZ are active here. Some processors buy a four-kilo carton of quality fruits at Ksh420, which is higher than what the middlemen offer. Avocado fruit aggregation This is where an individual farmer, farmers’ group or co-operative society buys and aggregates the produce from several farmers and later sells to exporters or processors. However, the aggregator needs to be aware of the phytosanitary conditions imposed by the import market to meet the unique requirements. Individual avocado farming Farmers, who have ensured best agronomic practices on their trees, term the avocado as ‘gold’. Indeed, some now want every space on their farms to have an avocado tree
Mr Ayub Gitobu, a farmer in Meru County who has planted 2,800 seedlings on 14 acres, knows this well. Last year, he sold Ksh145,000 worth of avocados from only 15 trees, with one piece going for Ksh10. However, it is difficult for a small-scale farmer to get into the export market due to bureaucratic red tape, taxes, permits and approvals needed unless they are contracted by an export company.