Kenya is a large producer of avocados in the world. It’s also Kenya’s most popular fruit, accounting for about a fifth of the country’s overall horticulture exports.
But Kenya
only exports 10% of its total avocado production. By comparison, Chile exports 55% and South Africa exports 60%.
Avocado is grown in numerous parts of Kenya, with small-scale growers accounting for over 70% of total production. They grow it for a variety of reasons, including subsistence, local markets, and export.
Avocados are typically sourced from smallholder farmers, while some companies also source from larger growers or their own plantations.
A new study in Kenya surveyed 790 avocado-growing households to see what obstacles prevent smallholder growers from participating in export markets. We then looked at the ramifications for their farming operations. This includes labor inputs including hired and family labor, farm outputs, sales prices, and incomes.
We discovered that increasing Kenya’s avocado exports might increase smallholder farmers’ incomes. However, in order to do so, programs and politicians must lower the barriers that smallholders encounter when trying to enter export markets. These include harvesting, transportation, and liquidity expenses. There are other transaction costs associated with farmers’ organizations, such as membership fees and the opportunity costs of time spent attending meetings.
The entry barriers
Constraints on capital and liquidity: They frequently lack the financial resources to cover the high costs of participating in export markets.
Access to industrial technologies and institutional assistance, such as loans and training, is limited. As a result, smallholder avocado farmers are cut out of key value chain segments.
Poor infrastructure: In rural locations, a lack of good roads makes transporting produce to distant markets difficult and expensive.