Flowers, Trade and AGOA
Imagine a world where you pick up a bouquet of Kenyan flowers alongside your morning latte once a week. This is the dream world for Peeush Mahajan, owner of Shalimar Farms, a farm that produces cut flowers, one of Kenya’s biggest exports.
Last week, we toured this magnificent farm, if you could call it that. This farm was much closer to a well oiled machine. While in the U.S. the costs and benefits of large factory farms are debated, in Kenya farms and factories like this one provide a very interesting model for development. Shalimar Farms is part of the East Africa Growers Association (EAG), a collection of farms that work together to achieve economies of scale that make it easier to market their goods.
At the flower farm we learned about barriers to trade for the flower producers. While the farm has been able to find a place for their flowers in some developed-country markers, it has struggled to find buyers in the U.S. The EAG works with an organization called COMPETE, which is funded through USAID and is affiliated with the East Africa Trade Hub. COMPETE and the trade hub help connect flower producers like Shalimar Farms with buyers in the developed world through trade shows and personal introductions.
We also had a chance to learn about a piece of U.S. legislation called the African Growth and Opportunity ACT (AGOA). AGOA works to provide African suppliers with a market in the United States by eliminating tariffs and quotas on Africa exports, thus allowing African exporters an equal playing field within the U.S. market. Unfortunately, some key goods that Africa produces are not covered under AGOA.
Sadly, Mr. Mahajan’s dream cannot come true so long as he lacks access to markets in the developed world for his products, and as such, he and his employees will see limited success without the opportunity to export their goods to the United States. This means that he will not be able to expand his amazing operation to more Kenyans, providing them with health care, food, housing, and education for their children.
-Tomas Moreno
November 6th, 2009 at 8:19 am
yay thomas!
November 20th, 2009 at 6:33 am
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