Avocado farming pays off as exports to Europe grow

For Patrick Karanja, a small-scale farmer in Murang’a district, there are no regrets uprooting coffee trees to turn to avocado growing.

In the late 90’s, he uprooted over 100 coffee trees from his four acres, hoping to raise his income by growing more profitable crops.

He now owns 25 avocado trees, selling the fruit to Sunripe, a private horticultural company that exports them to the European Union.

He is one of hundreds of small-scale farmers enjoying a market that is growing at more than 20 per cent a year, at ever higher prices.

For Mr Karanja, the changeover has paid in other ways too: “In between my avocado trees I grow sweet potatoes, maize and beans, something that I couldn’t do while growing coffee,” he says.

But the greatest bonus has been the take-off in the avocado market itself, both abroad and locally, that has lifted prices per fruit from Sh1 to Sh6 each.

“The market prices for avocado have been going up for the last five years and trust me this is the fruit to watch,” says Ms Esther Wangari, the general manager of Olivado Kenya (EPZ) Ltd, an avocado processing company from New Zealand that four years ago established its East African base in Nairobi to buy fruits from farmers for processing into oil.

However, building its supplies has meant encouraging many farmers into a new variety of avocado.

Since the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) introduced the fruit in Central Kenya in the late 70’s the country has grown just two varieties.

Hass, a warty, medium sized, roundish fruit that turns purple at full maturity.

Fuerte, a Mexican-Guatemalan hybrid is a shiny-green, pear-shaped fruit that weighs 250g to 450 g with high oil content.

More than four fifths of the trees in Kenya are Fuerte, but market trends now favour Hass, with horticultural companies like Olivado Kenya and Kari encouraging farmers to plant Hass or invest in grafting services that change Fuerte into Hass.

Local consumption is rising, now to one-two kg per person annually, driven by consumers’ growing awareness of the fruit’s high nutritional value.

Afriganics East Africa, a leading exporter of East African fruits and vegetables, says 2,500 tonnes of avocadoes were exported in 2009, compared with 1,800 tonnes in 2008.

This saw the fruit move to account for more than a sixth of the country’s entire horticultural exports, the company said.