Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : The fragility of the cut flower sector in Kenya and its impacts as exposed by Covid 19

Auteur : Koech, Elizabeth

Université de soutenance : Gent University

Grade : International Master of Science in Rural Development 2021

Résumé
The Covid -19 pandemic has been termed as an atypical event that has disrupted global value chains bringing back into focus key debates on supply chain resilience. The cut flower chain in Kenya was most impacted by the pandemic in various ways such as ; (1) Lockdown policies that included curfews, restricted movements of farm personnel, and the flower commodity between regions and closure of boarders, (2) Workers sent home, (3)Bullwhip effects on supply of inputs, (4) Logistical breakdowns as a result of grounding of flights, curtailed movement of trucks, (5) Loss of revenue, (6)Closure of markets due to cancellation of weddings, and non-essential retail stores such as florists (Kenya flower council, 2020). To further understand these impacts, this study assessed the fragility of the sector using the heuristic stress testing mechanism. Fragility is defined as the property of a shocking event on a chain to have an accelerated and exaggerated non-linear impact on the system (Taleb et al., 2012). Twelve critical factors identified in literature (Jordaan, 2017 ; Stonebraker et al., 2009) were analysed. They include, supplier and buyer relationships, quality and safety performance, operational reliability, chain complexity, information and communication, infrastructure among others. The factors were measured based on their deviation from linearity. The resulting outputs of the study include fragility scores per factor, a map showcasing key fragility factors in the sector and comparisons of mean fragilities between different levels of value chain coordination. The study found significant differences in chain actors’ fragility among different levels of chain dependency, thus proving a trade-off exists between chain performance and safety. Finally, the paper provides insights on the impacts of the pandemic lockdown policies on different chain players in the cut flower sector.

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