Why flowers in UK vases are causing tensions in Kenya

Late winter and early spring is the most important time of year for the UK floristry business. Valentine’s Day marks the start of these crucial few months, with cut flowers ranging from sub-£5 bunches of roses (Aldi and Lidl) to specialist British-grown, seasonal bouquets bought by and for partners, spouses and unrequited loves. Mothering Sunday offers a bonanza on a similar scale, closely followed by Easter sales. Between them, these three events represent the busiest dates in the calendar for the cut-flower industry, a business with sales of about £2.2bn a year.

I can’t help but think of my parents whenever this time of year rolls around. For more than two decades they owned and ran a cut-flower nursery business in Kent. My memories of growing up on the nursery are vivid: tall chrysanthemum stems with huge flower heads being reverently laid “top and tail” in long cardboard boxes; row upon row of dahlias staked and tied by hand; and the unmistakable smell of the soil beds in the glasshouses being steam-sterilised between crops. This involved much manoeuvring of huge black tarpaulins that then billowed out like mainsails as the steam was pumped in, killing off any bugs that might be lurking.

Once a year, during the summer holidays, I was allowed to travel with my father to Covent Garden market to sell our flowers. A 2am start was required to ensure we had enough time to navigate our old Bedford van to London early enough to get the best possible prices from the buyers.

But my abiding memory is that it all seemed like a lot of very hard, manual work, with long hours and unsociably early starts. And while I enjoyed a happy childhood, the margins involved in cut-flower production meant that money was always tight.

Small-scale cut-flower production in the UK was once a popular means of generating cash wherever growing conditions were favourable. The climatic and geological aspects of various regions enabled flowers to be produced through the season — early field-grown daffodils from Cornwall, exotic blooms and edibles (grown in small glasshouses) from Guernsey. The smallholdings around Spalding, Lincolnshire, were famous for their patchwork of spring bulbs.

Yet by the 1970s the tight margins and labour-intensive nature of cut-flower growing was eroding the “cottage” UK industry. I met one of the last small-scale bulb growers in the Spalding area a decade ago. Their fields have now been converted to a far more profitable enterprise: a camping and caravan park.

My parents put up with the grinding labour and hard economics until the 1973 Opec crisis saw oil prices quadruple, turning their oil-heated glasshouses into white elephants almost overnight. More recently a number of smaller British flower farms have sprung up, fuelled in part by the wider, resurgent interest in locally produced, seasonal, sustainably grown produce. They are contributing to a vibrant “artisan” cut-flower industry in the UK.

The biggest players are now in Kenya, Ecuador, Colombia and Tanzania

The UK still has a few large-scale cut-flower and pot-plant growers, but some of the biggest players in the global flower business are now based in countries such as Kenya, Ecuador, Colombia and Tanzania.

It is estimated that as much as 90 per cent of Colombia’s $1.3bn cut-flower sales are to the US; as an agricultural export, the industry is second only to the $1.9bn the country makes from coffee. While the destination of the bulk of Colombia’s flowers is the US, African growers export primarily to Europe.

In spite of the vast shipping distances involved, the economics are still compelling; ambient temperatures in equatorial countries are conducive to year-round growing, without the need to provide expensive heating to acres of glasshouses. Light levels are excellent, salary costs low and the potential workforce abundant, taking a chunk of costs out of this labour-intensive industry.

Research and development costs for cut flowers, and in particular cut roses, are often high as suppliers invest in breeding programmes to create blooms that combine a long “vase life”, good colour and, increasingly, fragrance. Combining fragrance and vase life is the holy grail for rose growers, as the production of fragrance is directly associated with the material decline of each bloom; in essence, scent is a byproduct of decay.

The area around Lake Naivasha in Kenya is a cut-rose production hotspot. Together with other agricultural industries in the lake basin, it helps generate 10 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange, according to International Alert, a peacebuilding organisation. Flower farms were first established there in the late 1980s, and the region now supplies a fifth of all the florists’ roses sold in Europe and 70 per cent of the UK market, making it a multimillion-dollar industry for Kenya. There are more than 60 flower farms in the Naivasha basin, employing more than 50,000 people. The farms support local infrastructure, encourage foreign investment and frequently offer social benefits to workers such as healthcare, education, maternity leave and crèches.

Most employees are women — employers see them as more hard-working — which contributes to gender equality and female empowerment. Kenyan attitudes towards the flower industry are mixed though; the work is hard and underpaid, with many workers suffering ill health due to the chemicals used to control pests and diseases.

The rise of the flower industry and influx of workers to the Naivasha basin has also led to social and environmental tensions. Much of the water upon which the flower farms are dependent is extracted from the lake.

Rising incidents of drought and the increasing strain on Naivasha’s depleted water reserves are due to a combination of factors: growing demand from farms and other developing industries for lake water; changes in land use; a rising number of economic migrants; and the impact of climate change.

In turn, competition for water is leading to tension and, at times, violence between the Maasai, the nomadic pastoralist herders who have lived by the lake for centuries, and the Kikuyu people, who dominate the flower-farming industry. Despite being a comparatively small ethnic group in Kenya, the Maasai are known worldwide for their customs, dress and reputation as warriors. Their ancient lifestyle is reliant on their livestock, which need access to the lake.

The rise of the flower industry, and influx of workers, has led to social and environmental tension

Flower farming activities are reducing the available land for grazing and restricting herd access to the water as well as contributing to drought stress and social tension. During a drought in 2009, a struggle over water access led to fighting between the pastoralists and flower farms, causing several deaths, International Alert reports.

The organisation is working in Kenya to try to ease the tensions between the Maasai and flower farms, and recently published a “peace audit” of the region. To highlight the issues, over the Valentine’s Day period, International Alert staged a photographic exhibition titled Peace Blooms: Cattle, Conflict and the Roses of Lake Naivasha at the Hoxton Gallery, east London.

The challenges in the Naivasha basin are complex; the education and social welfare the flower farms provide are benefits that the Kenyan government struggles to offer adequately, and the employment and foreign currency contribute to economic security. But the flow of migrants seeking work and the increased strain on the lake are threatening the lives of the Maasai and the ecology of Lake Naivasha. Climate change could shave 2.6 per cent off Kenya’s annual GDP by 2030.

The composition of many cut flowers is as much as 95 per cent water, so every bloom exported from Kenya or elsewhere is also exporting a resource few producing countries can afford to lose. Whatever dialogue International Alert is able to build in Kenya, there can be no doubt; never mind the economics — nobody should die for the price of a rose.

Matthew Wilson is managing director of Clifton Nurseries, London

Photographs: Sven Torfinn; Steve Forrest; Rachel Warne; Dieter Telemans