This archive report was first published on 20 December 2019.
According to a study published on December 19, 2019, by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Kenyan smallholders can boost their incomes by nearly 39 percent by exporting avocados to the European market.
While a dozen avocados of the Haas variety sell for about Ksh3.5 ($0.035) in domestic markets, they can fetch almost Ksh6 ($0.06) in export markets, highlighting the potential for increased earnings.
However, small-scale Kenyan avocado farmers face significant barriers to accessing export markets, including insufficient capital, poor infrastructure, and high costs associated with 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 declined as a share of total production, standing at just 10 percent, compared to 20-30 percent in competitor nations like South Africa and Chile.
“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.
