In the face of ‘Love Local’ or ‘Buy British’ the benefits of fresh produce grown for the UK in Africa have got to be much better explained.
Environmentalists may whip up a hoo-ha over the carbon footprint of African fresh produce, but the well-researched evidence of the higher footprint of Europe-sourced equivalents soon silence that. So does shipping by sea from West Africa.
Personnel behind top African fresh produce businesses has also changed. A decade ago, I’d be met by a stereotype: a short-wearing, deep-tanned, hatted white. These days it’ll most likely be run by an African: modest and totally attuned with every aspect of the business.
Imagine the embarrassment of a European visitor who wrongly assumes the woman greeting him at the business HQ in Kenya with a cool drink is a lowly member of staff. I see him realise she’s the owner – and as sharp an international business dynamo as you are ever likely to meet. Her family business employs over 3,500 people and exports to Europe, Russia, Australia and China.
The continent is increasingly well connected. A few years ago the departure screens in Nairobi airport would show a handful of international flights a day, mainly on a north-south axis. Now the daily arrivals fill three screens. The Middle East and Far East markets are beckoning.
In Ghana, on the roof of a farm’s canteen, men and women, full of talent, share their lunch break and ambitions with me. Rather than set their sights on their nation’s capital, or even the risky route across North Africa to Europe that used to tempt the young, they look to farming export fresh produce for their future.
Is it something about the climate in Africa that inspires innovation? The preciousness of resources – natural or financial – prompts Africans to find alternative solutions to pressing production problems. I took UK farmers and growers to see new Kenyan crop protection products. It’s fair to say they found the new biopesticides in action to be jaw-droppingly exciting.
The result is the launch in the UK this autumn, by UK farmers, of a sister to the Kenyan company in order to get a suite of these much-needed, powerful products through EU registration and available for global use.
UK consumers are unlikely to be aware of the pace, power, progress and potential of supply chains from Africa to the UK. Whose fault is that? I think the fresh produce supply links here share the blame.
Aid appeals report Africa’s desperation. News coverage dramatically cover the disasters. The fresh produce sector in the UK with links to Africa has to be better at describing the amazing quality and integrity of fantastic fresh produce from Africa to be bought and eaten here.
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