There has been a revolution in the Kenyan avocado export market, characterised by the enormous growth in the past three years. After remaining a relatively small exporter of avocado for a prolonged period, Kenya has now overtaken SA to be the leading exporter of avocado in the continent and the seventh largest in the world.
To be clear though, this is not because SA is becoming insignificant, Kenya is finally doing what it should have been doing for a long period. You see, although Kenya has consistently been the continent’s leading producer of avocados, accounting for nearly 30% of production, which is twice the volume produced by SA, its export activity was generally marginal. It was only in 2016 that they started to catch up with the likes of SA, generating export revenues of $64m from $8m in 2001, according to data from Trade Map.
In the week of April 26 2019, Kenya has taken its avocado export drive to new heights, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding on sanitary and phytosanitary measures to enable the export of the product into China. This is a big deal because China is an important and growing market in the global avocados sphere, ranked as the ninth-largest importer in 2018.
China’s avocado imports grew from four tons in 2008 to 43,859 tons in 2018, according to data from the Trade Map. If growth continues over the coming years, Kenya stands to benefit from it. The countries that currently supply a large share of avocados to China are Peru, Mexico, Chile and New Zealand.
Now, China will join a list of countries that Kenya has exported its avocados to over the past few years, which include the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, France, Saudi Arabia, and the UK, among others.
This brings me to the point of SA, which has largely been exporting its avocados to the same countries. Given the new developments in Kenya, perhaps, SA should follow the same path and explore the possibility of opening a door for its avocado to China. After all, the growth of SA’s avocado market is generally export-led.
Between the 1994-1995 and 2016-2017 production seasons, SA’s avocado output grew by 72% to 77,508 tons, according to data from the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This was underpinned by growing demand from the domestic and global market. In the period between 1994-1995 and 2016-2017, SA exported, on average, about two-thirds of its avocado output.
The leading markets were somewhat similar to Kenya, as previously noted. These are the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Russia, Namibia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and France, which collectively accounted for 97% of SA’s avocado exports in 2017, and also in 2018.
While these markets have served SA well over the past couple of years, it would be useful for SA to also explore the Chinese market given its enormous growth in the recent past. Moreover, as plantings continue to increase across SA, with industry players suggesting that about 1,500ha will be added to the current area plantings of 17,500ha each year within the next five years, new markets will be needed for the added supply.
All this dovetails with SA’s government policy ambition of achieving an export-led growth in agriculture, and should, therefore, receive attention in terms of working with the industry to open up new markets for agriculture, and avocados in this particular case.
• Wandile Sihlobo is chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of SA (Agbiz).
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