The government through the Horticultural Crops Directorate (HCD) has announced plans to adopt new technologies and increase investment to ensure quality checks for fresh produce destined for the domestic and international markets.
This seeks to ensure 100% consignment testing of fresh produce as compared to the current sampling method where the ratio of the produce sampled is much lower than the entire cargo.
Speaking during the Kenya Fresh Produce Conference and Exhibition 2024, HCD acting director Christine Chesaro noted that investment in equipment will also increase Kenya’s chances of enhancing market access.
This is in terms of increasing the volumes the country is currently exporting, as well as diversifying the products intended for various markets.
“We are here for the conference to discuss issues of market access for fresh produce; fruits, flowers and vegetables,” Chesaro said.
“We are working with the private sector towards streamlining the distribution channels at the domestic market, especially through the establishment of aggregation centres and cold chain facilities that would help to reduce the post-harvest losses and give the produce a longer life.”
Chesaro further noted that the government is working with the counties to capacity-build farmers on best practices to ensure quality produce especially for avocados that are in high demand globally.
Kenya ranks 5th globally as a supplier of avocados, she added, but it also stands a better chance if it improves on produce quality.
“Coupled with increased production, we can easily place third,” she said.
“We are working towards enhancing services to ensure Kenya exports quality fruits. We are having discussions with stakeholders on how we can step up our practices in a way that will ensure that every fruit meets quality standards,” she said.
On air and sea freight concerns from exporters, Chesaro noted that the government is aware but the situation has been made worse by the Red Sea situation.
The tension along the Red Sea and the Middle East War has led to the usage of longer routes increasing final costs.
“In the past, they would be passing through Egypt to Europe, now they have to ship through South Africa to West Africa. This lengthens the time, and distances, increases the cost and makes it difficult to manage the produce,” Chesaro said.
“We hope the situation will normalise but we encourage the exporters to have discussions with those in the logistic sector to negotiate for lower shipping prices.”
“For the government, this is really about business and we cannot say that we can come in and work towards reducing the cost of freight. It is a business but we are encouraging conversation.”
Chesaro also noted that the taxes and levies that they levy in the sector are anchored in law adding that, however, there have been concerns with stakeholders that probably the government have different pay points that tend to lengthen the process of clearing a consignment.
“Institutions involved have been tasked to harmonise and reduce those processes to increase efficiency.,” she said.
“We are working towards a system that will reduce the processes and improve efficiency. We are looking at a system where you probably have the number of steps you need to clear a consignment to increase efficiency.”
Kenya’s horticultural sector remains a vital part of the economy, contributing approximately Sh157 billion last year from the export of fruits, flowers, and vegetables.
Speaking about the conference, Fresh Produce Consortium of Kenya CEO Okisegere Ojepat said the event was a congregation of fresh produce industry value chain actors to have a dialogue and ensure that they increase access to international and domestic markets for Kenya’s fresh produce.
“We thought it is important to have this conversation so that we can take stock of what happened last year and establish what we need to do to ensure we increase production and market,” he said.
“Looking at the logistics, compliance requirements, competitiveness of our products, branding and packaging to ensure we give value.”
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