6 - Growing Roses: Reorganising Flower Production at Lake Naivasha

Summary

‘A farm is not a machine, there are always challenges’.

Dynamics in the cut flower industry are not only based on the external relations of the flower farms, but also related to internal modes of organising cut flower breeding, production, and trade. In economic geography, firms have often been conceived of as single nodes or boxes with little attention paid to internal dynamics (Coe et al. 2008, 277). Although constituting a single legally defined entity, farms are not internally homogeneous actors. External relations and dynamics may have heterogeneous and arbitrary implications for distinct parts of companies, as they may for instance change the capital-labour relations within farms (Selwyn 2013, 78). Therefore, firms should rather be conceived of as ‘relational network[s]’ (Coe et al. 2008, 277). Looking behind the fences of the flower farms at Lake Naivasha and scrutinising their internal mechanisms is key when trying to understand the interdependencies between market dynamics and flower growing. In order to understand the dynamics of reorganisation in terms of cut flower production, a short look at how farms are assembled materially and socially is first necessary.

The greenhouse is the most essential part of any flower farm (see Figure 10). It also tends to be front and centre in any visual representation of the farm, such as on bouquet sleeves or in Fairtrade brochures. Yet, in order to grow and pack cut flowers, further technical facilities are necessary: water pumps, waste water cleaning, irrigation and fertigation systems, spray rooms for chemicals, workshops for maintenance, vehicles for transport, etc. After production, flowers are brought to the packhouse, where they are graded, bunched, and then cool stored. Administrative and social buildings also complement these structures on the farms: offices, sometimes housing for managers and/or labourers, a canteen, toilets, etc. On most farms production is organised based on a top-down hierarchy (see Figure 11). Even farms striving for flat hierarchies follow the overall structure of a general manager overseeing production, packhouse or post-harvest, and HR-management. Below this level, these sections are subdivided and headed by supervisors or – depending on the farm size – another management level. At the bottom of the hierarchy, general workers make up the vast majority of employees.