By MaryAnne Musilo,

A flower farm in Naivasha that was exporting a tonne of flowers a day is now burning around a quarter of its flowers to clear produce it can‘t get to market with cargo flights disrupted by the war in the Middle East.

Dan Odhiambo, an agriculturalist consultant at Shalimar farm, said although the demand is still there, the logistics cost is now so high that many of its flowers are having to be destroyed.

“Most flowers are exported to Europe, but there is a new factor, being the Middle East. Freight is the main issue as of now. Before the Iran war, we used to export flowers at a carriage cost of $3 per kilo, but the prices have now risen to $5,” he said

“Kenya Airways doesn’t deal with perishable goods and we mostly depend on Middle East airlines like Qatar, and the Emirates and since the war, planes coming to Kenya are minimal and so the freight rates went up,” he said.

The growers have tried other means of export like courier services but these are also expensive. “We tried to source other courier services like the DHL but it is also expensive. Their export rate is $5 per kilo. It’s not a solution,” he said.

“We are not able to export all flowers because of these rates. So we export the ones we can and the rest, we burn or use it as compost. A quarter of what we produce is not reaching the export market and this is what we burn.” 

“It is sad that flowers grown with so much input end up lit in flames,” he said.

“We mostly grow roses, like red roses, pink roses, white and cream, Julieta series and summer flowers. Per day we used to export between 500 kg to one tonne of flowers.”

But exporters are now scrambling for limited cargo space for the blooms.

“Now because the freight is small, we have limits. They limit the load or goods to be exported.”

At the same time, the freight costs have soared, and all the costs are being covered now by a smaller volume of sales.

“Cut flowers were initially sold at $5 but we are now selling at $9 per kilo. The freight cost is crazy and in turn we are making losses,” he said.

Auctioned flowers in the end markets do not necessarily cover the extra freight cost. “It is either we cut the price of flowers, and we won’t make a profit.”

“But slowly, I think, it will be back to normal. I’m hopeful,” he said.