If you live in Europe and are lucky enough to be given roses by your Valentine, there is a good chance that they were grown in Kenya -- specifically, in one of the colossal greenhouses that blot out the once wild shores of Lake Naivasha, 56 miles northwest of Nairobi. About 25 percent of Europe's cut flowers come from Kenya.

After a tentative start in the 1980s the industry now is the country's third-largest foreign-currency earner, bringing in $120 million a year.

The top two earners, tourism and tea, have been wrecked by the spasms of bloodletting and ethnic cleansing since December's disputed election. Safari lodges are mostly closed, and package tourism on the coast is ruined for the rest of the year.

Lost exports are costing the tea industry $2 million a day, and violence on the big tea estates around Kericho has destroyed machinery, warehouses and housing.

The flower farms are clinging on, but the violence could not have come at a worse time. Although they grow buttonhole carnations in every shade of cream, the real money is in red roses.

The Lake Naivasha Growers' Group, an alliance of owners, said Valentine's Day accounts for one-third of their annual production. Oserian, one of the largest farms, hopes to sell 6 million roses this week. Its 5,000 workers live on the farm, and nearly all have been reporting for work.

The story is very different on the smaller farms, where workers live off-site in their own, often squalid and insecure housing.

Several days of work were lost when violence reached the lake Jan. 26. Killings elsewhere in the country led to an explosion of anger and a systematic campaign to drive out workers belonging to the Luo group. A local trade union said 3,000 of the 30,000 workers employed in Naivasha's flower farms have abandoned their jobs, most of them Luos.

The growers are trying to limit further trouble by housing displaced workers in a temporary camp. Hiring replacements will not be difficult, because the average monthly salary of $80 plus benefits is considered a good wage.

Roses need labor-intensive watering, pruning and treating before they can be clipped and flown daily to buyers in Amsterdam and London. The best are sold through auctions to florists; the less good end up in European supermarkets.

Kenya emerged as a flower power when Israel scaled down its own industry. It has since lost business to neighboring Ethiopia, which offers tax breaks and better security, but Naivasha's perfect intensity of sunlight and days of near-constant length should keep it on top.

In any case, the owners are stoical. "We're committed privateers," said one. "We'll just pick up and move somewhere else in Africa."