I went back to Naivasha on Friday, 10 days after my last visit. Things are beginning to return to normal - the hotels report a steady flow of tourists (mainly from Nairobi), while the flower farmers are confident they can make up for lost time and meet their Valentine's Day orders.
For a while it looked like the horticulture industry, Kenya's second largest, would go the same way as tourism and tea (numbers one and three). The farms that circle Lake Naivasha provide one third of all cut flowers sold in the EU. That £3.99 bouquet you picked up from Tesco on the way home from work was probably grown right here.
Kenya's flower farms are a real success story. With no World Bank funding and little in the way of government support it has become the world's largest supplier of roses. The success of the industry acted as a magnet for workers of different tribes from all across the country. As Peter Szapary, the head of the Lake Naivasha Growers' Group, told me Naivasha became the perfect model for a peaceful, multi-ethnic Kenya.
That model now lies in tatters, as the sight of Luos packing onto buses to head back to Nyanza testifies. But the farmers are confident that it can be rebuilt.
For those wondering how best to help Kenya and its people recover the usual aid agencies will be more than happy to take your money. But if you want to help Kenya's economy (and it certainly needs helping) you could do a lot worse than buy a dozen red roses from Kenya this Valentine's Day.
Well said. I am hoping the UK government steps up to the mark this year - last year's speech by Hillary Benn about "buying kenyan roses to help the African poor" [delivered on Valentine's Day] was excellent at getting across a complex trade-development issue. My worry is that this year, some Sir Humphrey bean-counter will consider the """risks""" too high. M&S, Sainsbury and Tesco have strong African-based advertising ... so our government figures have no excuses.
Posted by: Tall Economist | Monday, 11 February 2008 at 08:50 AM