Agriculture Food Authority (AFA) has moved to register avocado pack house dealers in efforts to enhance quality of the export commodity, through eradicating merchants thriving on immature fruits.
The regulator has employed more quality inspectors along the value chain, to protect the sector earning the country more than Sh19 billion annually.
AFA leadership led by Mr Cornelly Serem and Horticulture Crops Directorate (HCD) acting director Ms Christine Chesaro said the registration of the pack house operators is among the measures to flush out rogue players within the avocado industry.
In a meeting in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), Serem ordered the revocation of the licenses of those found engaging in malpractices.
The government, he said, was keen on streamlining the avocado value chain through registration of the critical players and cancellation of some licenses of those implicated in the malpractices.
The harvesting season opened on March 1, with the dealers warned against compromising the standard of the avocado destined for the export market.
“Last year the industry earned Sh19.5 billion, an increase from Sh10.6 billion in 2019, thus the need to embark on safety standards to protect the sector from being manipulated by a few,” said Serem who chairs the AFA board.
Chesaro said the registration of the dealers is designed to protect the image of the country in the market, and ensure the traceability of the product.
“The authority has the details of the exporters and the majority are supportive of the industry,” she added.
The regulator regretted incidents of last year when harvesting of the commodity had been stopped when immature avocados were seized at Namanga border and arrest of merchants from Kenya made.
Also the regulator unmasked characters of some traders who mixed mangoes with avocados before the consignment from Kenya was intercepted in Dubai in December.
The chairman of the Avocado Exporters Association of Kenya Mr Samson Mureithi made a passionate appeal to the regulator to deal with some buyers who fail to pay their suppliers.
The exporters, he said, have lost their money to fraudsters who should be forced to pay their suppliers.
” After defrauding the Kenya traders, the rogue dealers change names of their companies to continue with the tricks of stealing,” said the exporters’ chairman.
During the meeting the dealers said they were incurring heavy costs following the unending crisis at the Red Sea,as the cargo ships are forced to operate the longer routes through Cape of Good Hope to reach the European market.