Avocados Are Taking Over as Kenya’s Main Cash Crop

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Kenya is curtailing its once-dominant coffee and tea production in favor of avocados amid the global rise in avocado demand. Difficult trading conditions facing coffee and tea farmers due to declining global prices coupled with unpredictable weather have forced producers to look elsewhere for stable revenue.

At the same time, the increased awareness of avocados’ likely health benefits among health-conscious consumers has created a booming market. For example, US imports of avocados increased by 100.4 percent between 2000 and 2017.

Growing avocados requires minimal maintenance in Kenya’s ideal climate. This has led many farmers to uproot their tea & coffee trees. Kakuzi, Kenya’s largest commercial producer of pineapples, has completely replaced pineapples with avocados after reporting a 5.2 percent increase in profits from avocado sales in 2017. Kenya is now Africa’s largest producer of avocados and the seventh largest in the world.

Avocados have the potential to entirely replace the once-booming coffee and tea industries across Kenya. However, some stakeholders anxiously caution that this boom may only be temporary. Gro Intelligence subscribers keep up with these contending crops by monitoring Kenyan avocado versus coffee and tea production.

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