Flower Farms

Below Alice Matthews writes about a varied Friday on the shores of Lake Naivasha

Friday 26th June

Surrounding Lake Naivasha, and Elsamere, are flower farms and this morning we had the opportunity to visit one. As the lake is decreasing, from lack of rain, but is still needed by the local people for their crops, we were interested in how the flower farms were using the water effectively. It seems slightly unfair that the farmers have thriving crops of flowers when the locals do not have enough water to grow crops, or feed themselves.

The farm that we visited was a ‘breading’ farm, which means that it creates new types of rose and then gets royalties from people who plant crops of them. They change the colours and strength of scent of the roses by mixing existing types together. Each new batch of flowers is given a number, which the farm keeps, and a name, which can be used freely. We were told that they have a watering system that only gives the flowers a tiny amount of water, enough to survive on. Any extra water is collected back up, topped up with fertiliser, and fed back to the plants. It is an efficient but expensive system that was in use, and although other farms, and Lake Nivasha, would benefit from it, most cannot afford to install it all in one go. Unfortunately we were not shown where the waste water is put, outside some of the other flower farms are ditches of dirty water.

The working conditions in the farm seemed good, although we were only allowed to visit one of the many plant houses, and although it was hot the workers seemed relaxed and the place was very clean. It is likely that not all of the plant houses are as pleasant. Unfortunately the wealth from the flower market does not seem to be making its way to the locals, only the owners (there were two expensive cars in the drive). The closest village to the farm was made of corrugated iron ‘shacks’ and was highly underdeveloped. Apart from the farms creating jobs for local people, they appear to have little interest in the area, or the protecting of its resources.

On leaving the flower farm, Cliff was keen for us to see a local snake farm. The place was not quite as we had expected and consisted of a few huts on the side of the road, but at 100 shillings each we couldn’t complain! The owners had caught many species of snake from around Nivasha and Aby and I were allowed to hold a small one. They also got out a Python and were keen for us to touch it. The Kenyans seemed to be more scared than the English! On the drive back to Elsamere we saw many giraffes on the side on the road, some of them were incredibly close. There were also warthogs and zebra. We noticed that some farmers have started to dig irrigation ditches from the lake, which is disliked by the locals, and Morgan and Howard interview Cliff about the effects.