This archive report was first published on 19 December 2019.
Published on December 19, 2019, a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute revealed that Kenyan smallholders can significantly boost their incomes by exporting avocados to the European market.
According to the study, a dozen avocados of the Haas variety that sell for about Sh3.5 in domestic markets can fetch almost Sh6 in export markets.
However, small-scale Kenyan avocado farmers are often unable to take advantage of the higher prices paid abroad due to insufficient capital, poor infrastructure, and the high costs of meeting stringent export standards.
Currently, only a few small-scale avocado farmers, mostly in Murang'a County in Central Kenya, are linked to export markets through contract farming.
Despite growing international demand, avocado exports from Kenya have been declining as a share of total production of the crop, now standing at 10 percent.
“Providing households access to foreign markets and up-to-date information on farm technology, along with the dissemination of simple and domestically invented technologies, could achieve higher farm incomes, revenues and sales prices,” said Mulubrhan Amare, the study's lead author.
