Good News for The African Flower Exports

We carried a report about the collapse of the market in flowers due to COVID a couple of months ago, when Kenyan farmers were forced to throw away millions of roses in March as Europe sealed borders; weddings were put on hold, and funerals scaled back. But demand is returning as restrictions ease and growers are hoping it will recover fully by 2021. Europe accounts for nearly 70% of Kenya’s cut flower exports and the lockdown had slashed daily orders by half, threatening thousands of jobs. Flower export is one of Kenya’s top 3 foreign exchange earners and generated nearly $1bn dollars in 2019. Ethiopia was similarly affected by the downturn in flower sales to the EU.