January 22,2019, Nairobi. There was blame game experienced during HCD Avocado consultative meeting between HCD staff, brokers, exporters and associates as the lifting of avocado export ban was not effected as earlier communicated.
Exporters were blamed for having been notorious in exportation of immature fruits, which came as some of them had harvested fruits at the eve of this meeting with expectations of having the ban lifted. HCD warned that the imposed ban will endure as long as the malpractice in the industry is rampant and having the ban lifted will foresee harvesting of immature main crops exported or wasted. Opinions of getting the rogue exporters named and their license withdrawn were raised during the meeting.
The more than a hundred people who attended the meeting argued that the ban was not a business incentive with HCD admitting past failure of the many attempts at self-regulation. They also urged HCD to avoid registering of avocados.foreign exporters due to the fact that the Kenya exporters are working in cohort with them for kickbacks. Only 14 exporters had requested for avocado farm inspection out of the about 500 registered exporters according to HCD.
The main reason given on the ban was that there were a small percentage of ready fruits. The ban lift may be considered early February for Fuerte and early March for Hass avocados