On the fertile slopes of Ethiopia’s Rift Valley and around Kenya’s Lake Naivasha, thousands of workers tend rows of roses destined for European florists and supermarkets. These flowers—cultivated on some of Africa’s most productive land—will arrive in Amsterdam, London, and Berlin within days, adorning Valentine’s bouquets and Mother’s Day arrangements. But back home, millions face food insecurity on a continent that paradoxically possesses 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land yet imports a third of its cereals.
This jarring contrast lies at the heart of a heated debate: Is Africa’s booming flower industry a development success story or a modern manifestation of colonial exploitation?
The Scale of the Flower Economy
Kenya and Ethiopia dominate Africa’s floriculture sector, collectively producing billions of stems annually for export markets primarily in Europe. Ethiopia’s floriculture sector generates approximately $250-600 million annually from cut flower exports, making it Africa’s second-largest flower exporter. Kenya’s flower industry generates over $1 billion annually and accounts for nearly 1.5% of the country’s GDP, with the nation supplying roughly 30-35% of flowers sold at European auctions. Kenyan roses alone contribute to 40% of the European market presence.
The industry emerged rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s, driven by favorable policies designed to attract foreign investment. Ethiopia attracted foreign investors through supportive policies including a five-year tax holiday, duty-free import of machinery, easy access to bank loans and the availability of easy-to-train labor. Many of the farms are owned or operated by Dutch, Israeli, and other European companies that bring capital, technology, and direct market access to European buyers.
In Kenya, farms like Beauty Line Ltd. are wholly owned and operated by Israeli interests, while Maridadi Flowers operates 42 hectares owned by European investors. Black Tulip Group from the UAE owns multiple farms across both countries. This foreign ownership pattern echoes throughout the sector, with Dutch, Israeli, and European companies controlling a significant portion of production.
The industry has been expanding beyond its traditional strongholds. Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa are emerging players in the cut flower trade. In 2023, the UK imported flowers worth £12.6 million from Ethiopia, £1.1 million from Uganda, £839,000 from Tanzania, and £727,000 from Rwanda. The sector continues to grow across East Africa, with flower production now spanning Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and other nations. According to industry data, Kenya holds 62% of Africa’s flower export share, Ethiopia 24%, with other nations comprising the remainder.
The growth trajectory shows no signs of slowing. The cut flower category has grown in several African countries, with flowers transported as cargo in passenger flights making up 40% of the total freight transported by air. Traditionally, the Netherlands dominated the global flower market with a 50% share, but by 2019 this had decreased to 48% as countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia and Ecuador increased their presence in the cut flower trade.
The Land Conflict: Flowers vs. Food
The central tension is stark: floriculture produces non-edible products for wealthy foreign consumers while occupying land that could grow food for local populations struggling with malnutrition.
The expansion of the floriculture industry has significantly impacted smallholder farmers’ access to arable and grazing lands, with large-scale acquisitions for high-value flower cultivation leading to loss of agricultural land, disruption of grazing spaces, social and economic displacement, and threats to food security.
In Ethiopia’s Sululta district, researchers found that flower farms have controlled lands in various ways that restrict smallholder farmers’ access to both land and water resources. Smallholder farmers, who typically cultivate edible crops and ensure national food security, face increased pressure from large-scale agribusinesses.
The statistics are troubling. In Ethiopia, only 1,600-3,400 hectares are dedicated to flowers, yet this sector generates hundreds of millions in export revenue—more than coffee farming, which uses 871,000 hectares. In Kenya, over 2,500 hectares are devoted to floriculture. The lowlands around Lake Naivasha are responsible for over 70% of Kenya’s cut-flower exports, concentrated in just 50 square kilometers adjoining the lake in the north-east.
The practice of dedicating extensive tracts of land to flower cultivation—a single type of crop that does not contribute to the food supply—is particularly problematic in the context of Ethiopia’s acute need for agricultural diversification and enhancement of food security. Ethiopia faces chronic food insecurity, with smallholder farmers typically managing plots of just 0.9 hectares while foreign-owned flower farms control tens or even hundreds of hectares of prime agricultural land.
Across Africa, the pattern repeats itself. Companies from developed nations have acquired fertile land, particularly in the Nile River Basin covering 3.18 million square kilometers from Uganda to Egypt, for growing food crops, flowers, tobacco and biofuels, rearing livestock and logging trees. Most of these deals are agricultural leases and forest concessions. In Tanzania, only about 33% of arable land is cultivated compared to over 95% for Malawi and Rwanda, making it an attractive target for large-scale farming operations including floriculture.
The Environmental Crisis: Lake Naivasha’s Warning
Water scarcity compounds the land problem. Around Lake Naivasha in Kenya, the flower industry has created an environmental catastrophe that serves as a cautionary tale for the entire sector’s sustainability.
Lake Naivasha is experiencing severe environmental problems as a result of pollution from agricultural effluents and urban water surface runoff, uncontrolled water abstraction, improper land use practices in the catchment area and proliferation of wetlands’ invasive species. More than 50 farms line the lake’s shore and account for half of all water withdrawals from the lake.
The total virtual water export related to export of cut flowers from the Lake Naivasha Basin was 16 million cubic meters per year during the period 1996-2005, comprising 22% green water, 45% blue water, and 33% grey water. The flower industry’s heavy water consumption for greenhouse operations directly competes with food crop irrigation needs and drinking water for local communities.
The environmental damage extends beyond water quantity to catastrophic pollution. Environmentalists say that flower farms have taken water from the lake for irrigation and then dumped pesticide-waste back into the lake. The situation reached a crisis point when thousands of fish and other freshwater organisms perished in the lake. Fishing, once common in the lake, has since been banned. Water quality testing revealed that although the decline in lake level can be attributed mainly to commercial farms around the lake, both commercial farms and smallholder farms in the upper catchment are responsible for lake pollution due to nutrient load.
Flamingos—birds that favor saltwater—have started appearing at the freshwater Lake Naivasha, an unmistakable signal that the natural balances of a healthy ecosystem have sustained a heavy blow. When flamingos flock to freshwater lakes, it indicates serious ecological disruption.
The pollution is measurable and severe. Studies detected heavy metals including zinc, chromium, copper, nickel, and lead in lake waters and sediments. Chemical oxygen demand levels, total dissolved solids, and nutrient loads from fertilizers have all increased dramatically. Algae has developed on Lake Naivasha’s margin, another sign of the lake’s worsening condition. The observed decline in the lake level and deterioration of the lake’s biodiversity calls for sustainable management of the basin.
Environmental experts warn that at the current rate of consumption, Lake Naivasha could be lost completely within 10 to 15 years. Some flower farms have been accused of setting up their grounds over protected wetlands with dire consequences for the original habitats. The area around Lake Naivasha is considered wetland of international importance whose management and conservation are based on the principles of the Ramsar Convention, to which Kenya is a signatory.
Despite some flower farms adopting constructed wetland technologies to treat their wastes prior to release into the lake’s ecosystem, the overall environmental trajectory remains alarming. The constructed wetlands show some promise—reducing heavy metal concentrations by 20-97% and decreasing chemical oxygen demand by 4-72%—but many farms, particularly non-accredited operations, continue to discharge untreated or inadequately treated wastewater.
The Neo-Colonial Argument
Critics argue that Africa’s flower industry bears unmistakable hallmarks of what Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah termed “neo-colonialism”—where nominally independent nations remain economically directed from outside.
Nkrumah defined the essence of neo-colonialism as a situation where a state, while theoretically independent with all outward trappings of international sovereignty, has its economic system and political policy directed from outside. This economic control, exercised through indirect means rather than direct political rule, perpetuates colonial-era patterns of exploitation.
The parallels to colonial-era agriculture are striking. During colonialism, European powers transformed African agriculture to serve metropolitan needs, introducing plantation systems for cash crops like cotton, cocoa, and coffee for export while undermining food production. Colonial powers pursued this goal by encouraging the development of a commodity-based trading system, a cash crop agriculture system, and by building a trade network linking the total economic output of a region to the demands of the colonizing state.
The Scramble for Africa in the late 1800s distorted the composition of crop production, with agriculture strategy disproportionately focused on lucrative commercial crops instead of staple crops. In Uganda, the railroad construction influenced cotton production, which spread rapidly along new roads by the late 1920s. By 1929, Uganda had a very healthy peasant economy, and by 1950 it was one of the largest coffee and cotton producers in the Commonwealth.
However, after World War II, the British government set up agricultural marketing boards to control the trade of cotton and coffee to stabilize prices. These boards retained most of the profit by paying farmers meagre prices. The social system in colonies like Côte d’Ivoire was shaped by the requirement for cocoa and coffee, products that required lax land laws. Political power became inseparable from economic power, with ruling elites often acting more as agents of foreign business interests than as leaders of sovereign states.
Today’s flower industry reproduces these patterns with remarkable precision. Like colonial cash crops, flowers are non-food commodities grown exclusively for export to wealthy nations. The land used—prime arable soil with good water access—mirrors the colonial selection of the best agricultural land for export crops rather than food security. The foreign ownership structure, with European and Middle Eastern companies controlling major farms, echoes the plantation ownership of the colonial era.
The profit structure reinforces dependency. While Ethiopia’s flower exports generate impressive revenue figures, the actual value captured domestically is limited. Foreign companies repatriate profits, and the industry depends entirely on European market demand and logistics. Ethiopian Airlines’ cargo capacity and connections to over 100 destinations make the industry viable, but this also means Ethiopia’s flower farmers are completely dependent on external market access. Roses and carnations can go from Kenyan farm to London florist in 48 hours, but this speed serves European consumers, not African food security.
Africa continues the colonial tradition of cash cropping, with cash crops for export taking more and more of the best land from local food production, forcing peasants to bring additional marginal land under cultivation. The World Bank and IMF, through structural adjustment programs, have promoted export crops and cash crops over food crops, denying African governments policy tools that richer nations regularly use to support their farmers.
The comparison to contemporary situations in other export sectors is illuminating. Africa produces about 45% of the world’s cashew nuts, with 90% of the crop exported for processing overseas but with little benefit to the 2.5 million farmers involved in the industry. Africa also produces 70% of the global total of cocoa, yet Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the two largest producers globally, only receive 5% to 6% of the revenue from an annual market estimated to be worth $130 billion.
The Employment Paradox
Defenders of the flower industry point to job creation. In Kenya, over 500,000 people, including over 100,000 flower farm employees, depend on the floriculture industry for their livelihoods. In Ethiopia, approximately 180,000 jobs have been created, with 85 percent of those employed being women. Across East Africa, flower producer organizations account for the largest number of members in regional Fairtrade networks, currently constituting 60 member organizations.
Yet the quality and safety of these jobs raises profound questions. Workers face hazardous conditions including pesticide exposure, extreme heat, and poor ventilation. Evidence shows that hazardous chemicals used in growing cut flowers have produced adverse health effects, with specific abuses including spraying of pesticides in greenhouses while workers labor inside, fumigation of cold storage facilities as workers work within them, and maintenance of working conditions in extreme heat with few or no breaks.
The Health Crisis Among Flower Workers
The health impacts on flower farm workers are severe and well-documented across multiple African countries. In Ethiopia, Ethiopian rose cultivators use more than 212 different pesticides with various active ingredients. About 67% of workers in floriculture industries had at least one sign of respiratory health problems or infertility, and 81% of the workers had skin problems after joining the farm.
Studies of Ethiopian flower farm workers found a high prevalence of respiratory and dermal symptoms that did not exist in control testing. Workers who labor inside greenhouses were significantly more likely to develop symptoms than those who worked outside. The shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was associated with a threefold higher likelihood of developing health problems compared to situations where PPE was fully available for workers.
Many flower farmworkers, about 44%, have exposure to toxic insecticides and pesticides used on the farm. About 60% and 20.5% of the workers experience frequent severe headaches and skin irritation due to exposure to heavy metals. One study found that 90.6% of the workers had at least one sign and symptom of work-related health issues since they were employed on flower farms.
In Kenya, 58% of morbidity among floriculture workers resulted from occupational exposure to pesticides. Women, who comprise up to 75% of the workforce in Kenya’s flower sector and work in the industry’s most labor-intensive positions, face particularly high risks. Women mainly engaged in weeding, planting, and harvesting reported the highest proportion of symptoms potentially related to pesticide exposure.
Laboratory testing reveals the severity of the problem. Blood serum testing of flower farm workers in Ethiopia detected ten organochlorine pesticides and three pyrethroids at significantly higher levels than control groups. Workers showed high mean concentrations of p,p’-DDT and p,p’-DDE. Being a flower farm worker was identified as a significant predictor of moderate to high residues of p,p’-DDE, total DDT, heptachlor-epoxide and dibutyl chlorendate. Workers exposed to DDT and β-Endosulfan developed symptoms including numbness, headache, joint pain, throat infections, and depression.
Working in the flower industry also causes kidney problems and other health problems such as headaches, coughing, skin rashes, respiratory problems, blood vein problems, pneumonia, bronchitis, sinus, and vomiting. Workers’ feet swell due to standing for many hours in the greenhouse. The absence of adequate toilet facilities, clean drinking water and showers, maternity leave as well as lack of first aid on Ethiopian flower farms has been widely reported.
In Tanzania, the situation mirrors Ethiopia and Kenya. Women were exposed to pesticides during pruning, grading, and general cleaning on flower farms, even when they did not spray pesticides themselves. The Arusha region, known for leading in pesticide trading and utilization, saw the use of 41 different pesticides in northern Tanzania, including class IA (extremely hazardous) and IB (highly hazardous) pesticides.
Gender-Based Exploitation
Sexual harassment is persistent, with a 2011 report finding that a majority of women surveyed believed sexual harassment is not adequately reported or investigated. Poor housing conditions and security around flower farms have contributed to increased risk of rape. Female workers tend to be low-skilled, lacking education and literacy, with few other employment options. Casual or short-term work is prevalent despite international standards requiring stronger worker protections.
The women’s committees set up to address concerns lack credibility among male coworkers and managers. Most workers do not read instructions on pesticide packages because they are illiterate or labels are in foreign languages with unknown signs and symbols. Many depend on their supervisors to read instructions for them, creating power imbalances vulnerable to exploitation.
A 2011 report compiled by the Kenyan government found that casual or short-term work was fairly prevalent in the country’s cut flower industry, in spite of international standards—particularly requirements for export to EU markets—that have sought to strengthen protections for workers. Women working in horticulture usually have low levels of education and income and lack decision-making power even on matters relating to their own health.
The Failure of Certification
Even farms certified with sustainability standards show limited improvements. Studies comparing farms certified with lower-level standards to those with higher-level standards found no significant differences with respect to use of registered pesticides, their toxicity level, re-entry period, accumulation of obsolete pesticides, solid and liquid waste disposal, disposal of empty containers, provision of personal protective equipment, and exposure to chemicals.
Differences were found only on some aspects of workers’ rights such as reduction in working hours, formation of labour unions, and provision of medical services for higher-level certified growers. However, even certified farms face serious issues. A health officer reported that farm owners are not comfortable when health and safety reports document real pesticide exposure. Another worker on a health and safety committee experienced signing minutes for the purpose of audits without conducting actual meetings.
The wage structure further illustrates the neo-colonial dynamic: African workers receive minimal compensation to produce luxury goods for European consumers. The value addition—sleeving, labelling, bouquet production—often happens in Europe rather than at the source, limiting the economic benefits that remain in Africa. The Netherlands has shifted its focus from flower production to flower trading, capturing the value-added portion of the supply chain while African countries provide only the raw product and cheap labor.
The Infrastructure Trap
The industry’s defenders note that flower farms have driven infrastructure development, with roads, cold storage facilities, and greenhouse technology. Research shows that path dependence due to colonial infrastructure investments is more important than continued agricultural productivity advantages in explaining why certain areas develop.
But this infrastructure serves export needs, not domestic development. The roads connect flower farms to airports, not rural food markets to cities. The cold chain preserves roses for Amsterdam, not vegetables for Addis Ababa. The positive local effects of colonial cash crop extraction came at the expense of surrounding areas, entrenching deep spatial inequalities.
During colonial times, European powers built infrastructure primarily to aid immediate extraction of valuable resources, with little to no investment in growing local business. The rail and port infrastructure did create economic opportunities for African farmers living in the vicinity, thus determining the economic geography of the colony, with long-term effects on development. The railroad from Dakar to Saint Louis crossed prime peanut-growing country, leading to a boom in peanut production in Senegal in 1879. Similar impacts were seen on peanut production in Nigeria, maize production in fertile parts of Kenya and Zambia, and cotton production in Uganda.
However, competitive local industries would have reduced colonies’ trade dependence on central economies in Europe. This pattern persists today: flower industry infrastructure facilitates export dependence rather than domestic economic diversification. The integrated cold chain logistics that can preserve flowers’ freshness and transport them from farm to florist in 48 hours represents impressive technical achievement, but it serves European bouquets rather than African food security.
Policy Complicity
African governments have actively facilitated this system. Ethiopia’s five-year tax holidays, duty-free machinery imports, and subsidized electricity for flower companies represent significant foregone revenue that could fund food security programs. Kenya’s policies similarly prioritize floriculture through favorable land allocation and export support. The UK’s 2024 decision to suspend the 8% duty for cut flowers for two years further incentivizes the sector’s expansion.
This government complicity mirrors the colonial pattern where African leaders with close ties to former colonial powers acted more as agents of foreign business and geopolitical interests than as national leaders of sovereign states. The 2005 agricultural commercialization strategy in Ethiopia introduced large-scale agribusinesses, diminishing the role of smallholders in favor of export-led industries.
Some scholars argue that African ruling elites rationally seek systems that guarantee existing economic structures against market crises, as these systems also guarantee their political power. By creating incentives that lock in export-oriented agriculture, these policies prevent the political conditions for change and promote continuity along a colonial path.
Development programs have reinforced these dynamics. The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, backed by donors including UK DFID and USAID, has been criticized for facilitating land-grabbing amid creation of agricultural corridors, dispossessing subsistence farmers in favor of agribusiness needs of corporate partners including export crop sectors. The COMESA East African Community Horticulture Accelerator Programme, while ostensibly supporting agricultural development, focuses on export-oriented crops including flowers rather than food sovereignty.
The observed lax enforcement by authorities in regulating the utilization of water resources among diverse users illustrates the problem. Governments lack the means of enforcement even when regulations exist. Evidence of flower growing firms’ contribution to water use management remains low despite the severe environmental crisis at Lake Naivasha.
The Food Security Cost
The ultimate measure of the neo-colonial critique is food security. Africa spends a staggering $78 billion of scarce foreign currency on food imports each year, with some countries exceeding 100% of their annual foreign currency receipts on food purchases. More than 20% of Africans face hunger—twice as high as any other region.
Africa imports a third of the cereals it consumes, and 64% of the wheat. Ukraine, with just 14% of Africa’s arable land, was able to feed the continent before the current conflict. The continent possesses 24% of the world’s agricultural land and 17% of arable land, yet remains the hungriest region and a net food importer.
Meanwhile, flowers occupy thousands of hectares of the continent’s best farmland. The contrast is inescapable: land that could grow wheat, maize, or vegetables to feed hungry populations instead produces roses for European holidays. In Ethiopia, a country facing chronic food insecurity where millions require food aid, the best agricultural land with optimal climate conditions is devoted to producing Valentine’s Day bouquets.
The opportunity cost is staggering when calculated honestly. The 2,500 hectares devoted to floriculture in Kenya could produce substantial quantities of staple crops. The thousands of hectares in Ethiopia could significantly contribute to national food self-sufficiency. Instead, these lands generate foreign exchange that flows primarily to foreign-owned companies and contributes minimally to local food security.
Breaking the Pattern?
Whether the flower industry constitutes neo-colonialism depends partly on whether alternatives exist. Could Ethiopia and Kenya develop their agricultural sectors differently?
History suggests yes. During the colonial period and afterwards, many farmers resisted the imposition of cash crops. In Mali, farmers resisted French cotton cultivation, though ultimately systematic enforcement prevailed. Today, Mali and other former French colonies remain Africa’s largest cotton producers—a crop that severely depletes soil fertility, leaving land unable to switch to more profitable crops or even produce food.
Some African countries have pursued different paths. Despite external pressure, countries that prioritize food sovereignty and domestic agricultural development show it’s possible to resist the export-crop model. The question is whether African governments, often dependent on foreign aid and investment, can muster the political will to redirect prime agricultural land toward food security.
Several African countries have recently started overhauling communal land rights, creating a middle ground between individual freehold and the customary colonial model. The result is progress on land administration at a reasonable cost, pursued in countries as diverse as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso and Tanzania. However, this land administration reform has often facilitated large-scale land acquisitions by agribusiness rather than securing land for smallholder food production.
International institutions present obstacles. Development programs backed by major donors have promoted export-oriented agriculture over food crops. The flower industry represents integration into global markets that African nations seek, but on terms that reproduce colonial patterns of dependency. As it is, Tanzania’s farmers get rock-bottom prices for cashews and the country imports its nuts back after processing to meet buoyant domestic demand. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire receive only 5-6% of revenue from an annual cocoa market worth $130 billion.
Voices from the Ground
The disconnect between policy and reality becomes clear when examining individual experiences. Agricultural workers in flower farms report that they face insufficient oversight from regulatory bodies, with farm owners focusing primarily on profit margins. Workers do not proactively request PPE when supplies are depleted because they fear job loss. Health officers who document pesticide exposure face pressure from farm owners uncomfortable with honest reporting.
Local communities around Lake Naivasha report displacement from traditional fishing grounds and loss of access to water sources. Environmental activists document ecological destruction but face limited government response. The Ministry of Fisheries concluded that fish died from too little oxygen caused by decomposition of biological material and poor mixing of surface and sub-surface waters, a finding disputed by many outside government who question why the fish kill occurred only in the southern section of the lake where farms are concentrated.
Smallholder farmers in Ethiopia’s Sululta district describe watching flower farms acquire prime land with good water access that their families had cultivated for generations. They now farm smaller, more marginal plots while foreign-owned greenhouses occupy the best soil. Water that once irrigated food crops now feeds roses destined for European supermarkets.
A Verdict Without Easy Answers
Is Africa’s flower industry neo-colonial? The evidence suggests the label fits in important ways:
Foreign ownership dominates. Dutch, Israeli, and European companies control the majority of production, mirroring colonial plantation ownership patterns.
The best land produces non-food luxuries for wealthy markets. Prime agricultural land with optimal climate and water access grows roses for European bouquets rather than food for hungry Africans.
Workers labor in difficult conditions for low wages. Pesticide exposure, sexual harassment, inadequate safety equipment, and health problems plague the workforce while foreign companies capture most profits.
Governments prioritize foreign investment over food security. Tax holidays, subsidized utilities, and favorable land policies support export flowers while millions face hunger.
Infrastructure serves export needs. Roads to airports, cold chains to Europe, and logistics networks facilitate flower exports but don’t improve domestic food distribution.
The pattern reproduces colonial-era cash crop dependency. Like cotton, cocoa, and coffee before them, flowers represent non-food commodities grown for export to former colonizers on land that could feed local populations.
Environmental destruction follows profit. Lake Naivasha’s ecological crisis exemplifies how export-oriented agriculture prioritizes short-term profit over long-term sustainability.
Power structures favor external interests. Policy decisions reflect the needs of foreign investors and European consumers rather than African food security and environmental protection.
Yet the industry also provides employment, generates foreign exchange, and represents integration into global markets that African nations seek. Women workers, however poorly paid and treated, have income they might not otherwise have. The revenue, however unevenly distributed, contributes to GDP. The technological knowledge and agricultural techniques introduced could theoretically be redirected toward food production.
The more productive question may not be whether the flower industry is neo-colonial, but whether the trade-off it represents—prime farmland for export flowers instead of food crops—serves Africa’s long-term interests. As climate change intensifies, food insecurity worsens, and populations grow, the opportunity cost of devoting scarce arable land to European bouquets becomes harder to justify.
The environmental crisis at Lake Naivasha offers a preview of the industry’s unsustainability. Pesticide pollution, water depletion, ecosystem collapse—these are not externalities to be managed but fundamental contradictions of an industry that enriches foreign companies while depleting African resources. The workers suffering from respiratory problems, skin diseases, and pesticide poisoning pay the human cost of this extraction.
The neo-colonial analysis reveals how formally independent African nations can remain economically subordinate through market mechanisms rather than direct political control. The flower industry didn’t require military conquest or colonial administration. Instead, it used tax incentives, foreign investment, export markets, and complicit local elites to achieve the same result: African land and labor producing luxury goods for European consumers.
Hernando de Soto noted that farmers need help to leverage their resources and assets to create wealth, and that legally protected property rights are the key source of developed world prosperity. The irony is that comprehensive land grabs have been evident across Africa, particularly in the Nile River Basin, where companies from developed nations have acquired fertile land for growing flowers, food crops, tobacco and biofuels. The tragedy of the commons, where unregistered assets can be stolen by powerful interests, hurts individuals and broader economic development.
Breaking free requires more than rhetorical commitment to food sovereignty. It demands concrete policy changes: redirecting tax incentives from export crops to food production, strengthening environmental regulations and enforcement, securing land rights for smallholder farmers, prioritizing domestic food security over foreign exchange earnings, and building infrastructure that serves local food systems rather than export logistics.
The choice facing African nations is clear. Continue the pattern inherited from colonialism—prime land producing luxury goods for wealthy nations while local populations go hungry—or redirect agricultural resources toward food sovereignty and sustainable development. The former may generate impressive export revenues, but the latter offers genuine economic independence.
Flowers may bloom in Africa’s fields, but for millions going hungry, the real question is: who benefits from the harvest? Until that answer changes fundamentally—until African land primarily feeds African people rather than European consumers, until workers receive living wages and safe conditions, until environmental protection takes precedence over profit extraction, until governments serve citizens rather than foreign investors—the specter of neo-colonialism will continue to haunt the industry.
It remains a reminder that political independence without economic sovereignty is incomplete liberation. The colored flags of independence fly over African capitals, but economic decisions that shape millions of lives are still made in Amsterdam boardrooms and London trading houses. The flower industry crystallizes this reality: formally free nations growing luxury goods for their former colonizers on land where their own people go hungry.
This is the essence of neo-colonialism—not the crude extraction of earlier eras, but a sophisticated system of economic control that maintains dependency through market mechanisms, complicit elites, and international institutions. Until Africa’s agricultural resources serve African needs first, the liberation struggle remains unfinished.