Rural farmers urged to embrace horticulture – KBC | Kenya’s Watching

Rural farmers are being encouraged to embrace horticulture farming to harness the untapped potential.

Nyeri County officials are keen on demystifying the notion that horticulture is a preserve of the wealthy and flowers can only be grown in green houses.

Horticultural exports earned Kenya 154 billion shillings in 2018, which is the third highest behind diaspora remittances at 272 billion shillings and tourism receipts at 157 billion shillings.

In horticultural exports, cut-flowers remain the largest earner, contributing 74 per cent of the total annual earnings, vegetables at 18 percent and fruits at 8 percent.

However, cut-flowers are mainly done by wealthy who grow them in greenhouses.

This is what horticultural farmers and Nyeri County officials are seeking to demystify by encouraging small scale farmers to embrace horticulture.

Wilmar Flowers Company Operations Manager Joseph Kanyi believes horticulture is an industry anyone can enter regardless of their capital and size of land.

Kanyi is encouraging the youths to venture into flower farming to fight unemployment.

Nyeri County CEC for Agriculture James Wachihi Muturi says the devolved unit is supporting horticulture alongside traditional crops like coffee, tea and dairy farming.