Opinion: Farming in Kenya? It’s costly and there’s no support

What are the differences between farming in Kenya and the UK? This is a question I am often asked when I’m back in the UK.

I’m not sure what people expect to hear – probably that we farm in an agricultural paradise with no government interference, free from the paperwork that goes with Red Tractor type schemes, where no one questions chemical use, no one asks whether you have a record for cleaning trailers or calibration of sprayers, or where you can still burn straw and buy tractors that run without AdBlue.

See also: How no till rotation and resilience are driving Kenya’s farming shift

The biggest difference is opportunity. While there is plenty of government interference, there is absolutely no support, which means survival of the fittest.

It helps if your family emigrated here in 1920 and were given a tract of land by the colonial authorities, or if you are a politician with cash, connections and a desire to own land.

However, there are no subsidies, no environmental schemes, no tax breaks and no such thing as a VAT refund. You sink or swim on your own abilities.

I arrived 30 years ago, with my rucksack, for six weeks. Today, with my wife and son, I’m growing almost 2,430ha of crops, the majority of which will end up in UK supermarkets.

Costs going up

The downsides of growing for UK retailers are exactly the same as any UK grower experiences.

Our costs go up continually, but our customers don’t want to hear this and tell us we need to get more efficient.

We triple-crop our land, but for five months of the year we play second fiddle to UK-produced crops, even though the general belief is that supermarkets will buy from anywhere if the produce is cheaper. They don’t.

Continually I hear that imported crops are not grown to the same standards as UK produce. It might be the case with commodity crops, but it most certainly isn’t the case with vegetables.

We are continually audited by our customers to a standard that makes Red Tractor audits look very second division.

We cannot use any chemicals not cleared in the UK, but neither can we use any chemicals not registered in Kenya.

This makes for a very small list of actives and, just to make sure we don’t cheat, 20% of crops such as French beans are sampled for residues at our cost on arrival in UK.

This year we did a Leaf audit (we passed) and are now doing a human rights audit just to make sure we’ve no slaves on the farm.

No support

Kenya is a very expensive place to farm – there’s no rebated fuel, and electricity, spare parts and machinery are all costly.

Use agrochemicals? You need a permit. Got a potato store? You need another permit. Employing people? That’s another permit. Our water abstraction cost has just increased from 0.5p/cu m to 2p.

Worldwide, farming is under pressure, even where starvation is a real possibility. So why are we doing it? Well, it’s actually fun. It is a challenge.

Good farmers survive, poor farmers go out of business. There’s no safety net – it really is the ultimate in free market capitalism.

I won’t be rushing back to the UK to farm in a hurry.