Technically innovative? I say yes!

Before we left the UK, I recall someone saying to Chris - rather derogatorily - “you won’t need to focus on technical knowledge where you’re going” well, as it happens he was so very wrong.

This week we visited five different farms around Lake Naivasha. Generally speaking, I occupy myself whilst Chris is working, but on occasions Farm Managers invite me along to join them which is so great. I do tend to glaze over a little when Chris starts on "seed and weed talk" (my term for anything agronomy related) but actually seeing the farms is absolutely fascinating. I’m obviously no agronomist and will happily admit I even confuse the name ‘Roundup’ with ‘Stop n Grow’ (a nail-biting deterrent from the 70’s) must be my german logic, but even I can spot a technically advanced or innovative farm and so far most of them have been just that.

This week I met a Farm Manager who was using drones to check on crop advancement and spot any potential problems arising. He is breeding and cultivating specialist crops for the pharmaceutical industry on behalf of a swiss company.

A day later I was invited to join Chris and his colleague Doris on a drive around another farm on the southside of the lake. The company employs 1,600 staff on approximately 400 ha (4km²) and grow just about every horticultural crop; herbs, asparagus, beans, baby corn, salad onions, cauliflowers, squash, cabbage, broccoli, pak choi, courgettes, ginger, pepper and many others I’d not even heard of. I unexpectedly spotted lemongrass in one polytunnel which fleetingly made me think of doing a smash-and-grab! 95% of the farms’ output is exported to Europe on daily flights from Nairobi, their main UK clients being Sainsbury, M&S and Tesco. There are also fields upon fields currently dedicated to different avocado trials - grafting, spacing, cross pollination etc all using GPS applications.

This particular farm also produces their own electricity from green waste, generating 5 megawatts of electricity through an AD plant on location. The power generated is partly used on the farm and partly sold to back to the national grid. They also have a fleet of buses to transport staff to and from the workplace and provide a daily meal.

Finally we stopped at a third farm whose main crops are grapes, macadamia and cashew nuts. We were driven up to a trials site at which point the heavens opened and I opted to stay in the car! However, despite the downpour I could see that we were surrounded by vineyard trials testing variants of cabernet sauvignon and malbec. The company also grows barley, oats and wheat on another farm near us in Nakuru which I hope to visit soon.

A note on avocados

We have been gifted paper bags full of avocados from neighbours and friends since arriving in Kenya and it’s made me think. It was only three years ago that Chris and I were in New Zealand where avocados are an important high-value crop and in fact their third largest fruit export. When we arrived on the island(s) they were selling at £3.50 each (nearly €4) and by the time we left we couldn’t even find any on sale.

In Mexico they are known as ‘green gold’! Avocado growers are kidnapped and forced to pay huge amounts of protection money. Most growers have armed bodyguards around the clock and generally speaking criminal gangs who used to focus on cocaine are now targeting avocado farmers. Yet here in Kenya at both of our homes, Kenana Cottage and Arnie and Jacquis near Nairobi, the avocados are so plentiful that dogs clear the ground of those that have ripened and fallen - a stark contrast.

So... it was very interesting to hear that Gareth, who is running an extensive amount of avocado trials (as aforementioned) has visited amongst other countries, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Indonesia purely to glean the best global avocado growing knowledge possible.

Technically innovative…? I say yes.