Environment

How Flamingo balances the issues of commerce with the needs of the environment has always been key to the operation in Kenya, and never more so than now, with the huge demands to work to all the accepted international standards of environmental care.

Environment


For 20 years now, Homegrown have been farming in Kenya and have not only been instrumental in raising awareness of environmental issues, but have also been innovative in their approach to solving them. By keeping a watchful eye over their farming practices and fully assessing the impact of these practices, they have been able to ensure that there has been no negative effect on the environment, whilst protecting the natural flora and fauna. In the early days, Homegrown was instrumental in setting up the Lake Naivasha Growers’ Group, and continue to work closely within the Group to address conservation issues around the lake area.
Lake Naivasha, being wide and shallow, has always had fluctuating levels, and Homegrown is very aware of not over-extracting from the lake, as well as the requirement to return water to it in pristine condition. This is ensured by using low-volume metered drip irrigation which, in conjunction with the new methods of growing flowers using hydroponic techniques, means that very efficient water use is maintained.
Craig Oulton, Farm Manager: “We have an arrow dripper, which is in each individual pot which enables us to give the exact amount of fertiliser and water per pot. Excess will got down into these pipes. The pipes then run to a main pipe at the bottom of every row, and they go back into a reservoir which collects all our excess drainage and water, which can actually be 30% of the total water that we are applying per day.
That drainage and the fertiliser, will then be used on our soil crops so that we don’t waste any fertiliser or water. So we are conserving water, we are conserving fertiliser, and ultimately it helps us both with the environment and with the actual cost of our fertiliser”. This, in conjunction with the use of integrated pest management techniques introduced by Homegrown’s sister company, Dudutech, means that toxic chemical use has been very significantly reduced, with its associated benefits to people and plant welfare alike.
Any minor run-off is also treated in an environmentally sympathetic way. Wetland schemes filter it through a series of baffles, which have been planted up with nitrogen-loving plants so that, by the time the water reaches the last section, it is clean and pure.
Farming on the scale of Homegrown inevitably produces a mass of green waste, and it is now turned into the finest compost to be used on the farms. When Homegrown acquired Kingfisher Farm, they inherited acres of redundant wooden greenhouses that they were able to recycle. The wood is used for benches for the hydroponic growing of roses and for boundary fences, and the polythene for the extrusion of plastic crop supports.
On the Mount Kenya farms the environmental challenges have been somewhat different. The farms take their water from reservoirs custom-built to store floodwater. This means that, even in the dry season, the farms are self-sufficient and don’t need any of the water coming off the mountain, which may be wanted by users further downstream. The reservoirs have also prevented flash flooding into the rivers which, in the past, was so destructive, killing off plants and livestock of other farmers.
Homegrown is also a founder member of a scheme to pipe water and provide water storage for many smallholders downstream who grow subsistence crops. By limiting the impact on the environment, and by working within recognised international protocols, Flamingo has led the way in protecting the delicate ecosystem in which it farms, and has been instrumental in maintaining good environmental practice.