Apples light up as growing export opportunity for Kenyan farmers

Sat on the equator, Kenya is one of very few nations – another is Indonesia – able to deliver more than one apple harvest a year, with some farmers reporting to FarmBizAfrica that they are now producing as many as three harvests a year. This has opened the way for Kenyan apple farmers to earn two to three times more per acre from apples than farmers in China, the US, and Europe, which currently dominate global production.

Kenya farmers can also time their harvest at will, choosing when to remove the leaves on their trees to start another seasonal cycle. This is emerging as a real asset on its own, with the counter-cyclical harvest in South Africa already delivering strong export growth, with its apple exports up by 18 per cent post COVID, rising from 589,000 tonnes in 2020/2021 to 695,000 tonnes in 2025/2026.

The market is also shifting. Demand for apple imports is rising sharply in middle income countries, at the same time as production falls in China, which has been the world’s biggest producer, on aging farmers and orchards and declining acreage.

On the demand side, Apple imports into India have risen by 52.5 per cent since 2021, reaching 575,000 tonnes in 2025/2026, while growth has been even faster into Brazil, up four-fold to 220,000 tonnes over the same time. Imports are also rising into Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq.

Moreover, for farmers planning for the mid to long term, the emerging interest in pomace could now make the market even more profitable in years ahead.

The solids left after apple juice and cider making account for 25 per cent to 30 per cent of an apple, with a pilot in Slovenia reporting in April this year that extracting pectin from this pomade was highly profitable, producing a return on investment of over 100 per cent.

An EU project running from 2026 to 2028 is also now developing prebiotic ingredients from pomace worth an estimated €800 per tonne.

At the same time, as food prices continue to surge, a study by Cornell University has found freeze-dried pomace can replace up to 20 per cent of beef in meatballs without tasters noticing, opening a future for the apple ingredient as a meat replacement.

And even textiles are a possibility, with a pilot in Australia having proven the apples can be used to make cellulose and other raw materials for textiles, in a pilot that it reports is now ready for scale up.

FarmBizAfrica has identified apples as a market to watch, with strong and emerging opportunities for Kenyan exporters, who have a huge competitive advantage in the fruit, as multi-season producers.