Nyeri residents have been advised to form groups and venture into flower farming.
Wilmar Flowers operations manager Joseph Kanyi on Monday said the company is ready to train farmers on summer flowers production. Summer flowers are grown in open fields due to the low cost of investment required.
Kanyi spoke during the annual Wilmar field day in Sagana, Nyeri. The field day is meant to champion floriculture.
He said farmers will also be trained on farming as a business, financial management, books and record keeping.
Wilmar exports summer flowers grown by smallholders in Kenya.
The company recruits out-growers in registered small groups and introduces them to floriculture.
Summer flowers, Kanyi said, is an unexploited industry in Kenya. Kenya ranks high in production of flowers across the world.
“We are confident that we will change lives through growing flowers in the rural areas,” he said.
Flowers can be grown on a minimum of an eighth of an acre, he said.
The country, he said, is facing unemployment problems. Kanyi urged the youth to venture into floriculture as they do not need a lot of resources to start.
The company has been promoting floriculture in 14 counties where 10 varieties are grown by small-scale farmers.
“The market for summer flowers is in the Netherlands, which is an auction market, and there is a lot of hope from what Kenya is producing,” he said.
The company has also been working with firms that conduct soil testing for farmers at a subsidised fee.
Other services offered by Wilmar are the promotion of water harvesting programmes through partnership with the Nyeri government.
They also offer planting materials to farmers at a reasonable price, free delivery services and connect farmers to banks.
The company targets to sell 15 million stems by the end of this year and 20 million stems next year. It also has plans to increase the varieties from 10 to 15 by 2022.
Nyeri Agriculture executive James Muturi said traditional crops are not the solution to food security. He said the county government is encouraging Nyeri residents to diversify and look where they have a competitive advantage.
“We are happy to support the flower value chain. We are encouraging our youth who have not ventured into agribusiness,” he said.
“They might see where the money is and if that means shifting into flowers from traditional crops, we as a county are able to support.”
