Those Valentine's Day flowers might just be from Kenya

Cherop, a 29-year-old single mother of two, works at AAA Growers' Simba farm in Nyahururu, four hours' drive north of the capital, Nairobi.

International events, including Russia's war in Ukraine and plummeting oil prices, have shaped flower fortunes for numerous Kenyan farms.

Sales to oil-producing nations, such as Norway and those in the Middle East, have dropped due to their reduced spending power, said Britain-born Andrew Mules, general manager of AAA Growers' Simba farm.

Mr. Mules, who farmed in Zimbabwe before being evicted under President Robert Mugabe's land reforms, said prolonged rains due to the El Nino weather pattern have pressured the company's bottom line.

Dana Malaskova, AAA Growers' commercial manager, said that up until September 2014, the company was sending a quarter of their flowers to Russia, with a steady 5 percent annual growth; now the volume has shrunk to 5 percent of the total.

In the temperature-controlled storeroom of AAA Growers' warehouse, stacks of cardboard boxes bound for Canada, Australia, the United States and France are the end point to the process that started with workers like Cherop.