In not very long
at all, flower farming has become the pride of the nation. But the
sector has its drawbacks. As farm after farm opens for business in
different areas of the country, serious environmental consequences
are beginning to be known. FORTUNE Staff Writer, Wudineh Zenebe,
looks at the darker side of a blossoming business.
The Toxic Truths of the Flower Business
As the flower
industry grows, it has become a concern for environmentalists and
trade unions that the flower industry is chemically intensive and
will ultimately have an effect on the environment and on the workers
who are exposed to it in their day-to-day working life. As pleased
as the government is of the rapid development of the floriculture
industry, environmentalists are equally worried.
And as a boom
is seen in the industry, resulting in the increase of workers, so is
an increase in the type and amount of pesticide and agro-chemical
products being noted by the environmentalists who consider their
unregulated usage a nightmare. Their concerns arise from the way the
chemicals are used, to the manner of their usage, to their very of
disposal.
And some of the
testimonies are indeed harrowing. One worker spoken to by Fortune,
described a concerning everyday. “The men who spray the chemicals at
6am cover themselves with masks and when we enter to cut the flowers
after them around 9am we can still smell the chemicals in the green
houses,” said this woman worker. “This sometimes makes us faint
while working. When the chemical drops on our uncovered hands, they
swell and sometimes burst into wounds.”
Flower
production for commercial purposes started in Ethiopia in the 1980s;
the state-owned farms were the first flower farms of its kind and
until 1987, used to cultivate up to 150ht in total. As private
flower farms started coming up in the 1990s state farms started to
decline.
The pioneers in
the private sector were Meskel Flower Plc, a local company
established in 1993, and the Golden Rose Agro Farm Ltd, a foreign
company, which entered the industry in 1999.
The current
figure from the Ethiopian Investment Agency shows an aggregate
capital of 7.5 Billion Br from 235 projects registered, out of which
171 were foreign investors with a total capital of 5.3 billion Br.
The remaining 64 are local investors. At present, 75 to 80 projects
are underway.
Fifty farms are
fully operational and over thirty of them are fully involved in the
export of products to the European market. With regard to coverage
of land, the total area covered with green houses in operation at
the beginning of March, 2005, was reported to be 176ht of land with
actual cultivated land coverage ranging from one to 15ht per farm. A
significant proportion of the new floriculture farms are located
within the 50Km radius of Addis Abeba in the Oromia Regional State.
This growth is
attributed to the government’s incentives, which include customs
duty exemption; income tax exemption and remittance of funds.
Moreover, the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) has provided a
special loan for the sector.
According to
the Ethiopian Customs Authority, flower export performance has over
the last four years shown great development especially in Oromia.
In the 2002-2003 fiscal year, the country earned 2.9 million dollars
from flower exports; in 2004-2005, it earned 12.7 million dollars;
in 2005-2006, 21.9 million dollars. These figures were earned from
only 150ht of cultivatable land.
According to
the foreign export projection from the Ministry of Trade and
Industry on the flower industry, in the year 2006-2007 it is
expected to get 113 million dollars from a 645ht land developed and
1.1 billion stems produced in the current fiscal year.
As this labor intensive sector grows, so does the number of workers
on farms increase. Currently, the industry involves 25,000 workers
out of which 70pc are women. With a few floriculture farms located
around the Rift Valley area expected to hire around 72,000 workers
when they begin operations. The numbers just keep on increasing to
the alarm of those concerned about the welfare of the workers.
The Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development has already registered around 250
types of chemicals and pesticides in its books. The Ministry’s Crop
Protection Department maintains a list of chemicals that enter the
country, but since the floriculture industry is new, floriculture
chemicals are not necessarily included in the list as they are
imported using a special order from the Office of the Prime
Minister.
“The
agro-chemicals, used to be imported by each farm. Currently,
supplies are made by the Ethio-Horti Share Company, to minimize time
and costs,” said Tsegaye Abebe, President of the Ethiopian
Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association. “We use the
chemicals very carefully. Every good thing should be used within
limits, let alone agro-chemicals.”
Tsegaye
explained that a code of conduct, which is being prepared, will
address the two major components, the issue of labor and
environment.
There are
around 120 chemicals which enter into the country for the
floriculture industry. Refering to the World Health Organizations’
negative pesticide list, the environmentalists have categorized
these chemicals as having a carcinogenic potential. A carcinogen
element is any chemical, biological, or physical agent that can
potentially be a cause of cancer. The term is most commonly applied
to chemicals introduced into the environment by human activity. Out
of these highly hazardous chemicals, Flucythrinate, Chlorothalonil,
Cyproconazone, FOLPET and MANCOZEB including 15 other chemicals are
used in the flower farming sector in Ethiopia.
“There is a standard for
chemicals in Ethiopia, but as the floriculture industry is new we are working on
it in the current fiscal year, 2006/2007,” Mesay Girma, Director General of the
Quality and Standards Authority of Ethiopia said.
But the Forum for
Environment (FfE), which consists of 160 non-governmental organizations and was
established seven years ago, said that these chemicals need attention as they
are hazardous to humans and the environment.
According to a study done
on six floriculture farms, by Masresha Yimer, an expert in the sector, while
some farms are reported to have no work related hazards on its workers and its
surrounding environment, other farms were identified as having chemical
contamination and accidents as major work related risks for workers.
Moreover, concerning the
impact on the nearby environment, a farm can be considered to be environmentally
friendly if it uses closed green house systems, water recycling to avoid
pollution and makes efforts to import environmentally friendly products like
biological controls against pests. All the farms obtain the chemicals from
importers and suppliers or by directly importing from an overseas source, the
study said.
According to this study,
the existence of chemical handling, use and disposal, shows that some of the
farms with a specific system, have not faced specific problems. One farm showed
that it is even applying re-entry time interval based on the suppliers’
recommendation.
Regarding employees’ health
inspections, some studied farms indicated not having their own clinic, but that
they nevertheless ensured that a regular medical check up for its employees in
general and those working directly in the farm compound in particular be done in
intervals of six months at the nearest hospital. Other farms revealed that no
regular health check-up for workers was made, but that they offered the
possibility to seek free medical check up if necessary.
According to a chemist from
the Addis Abeba University Science Faculty, the long term effects that can
result from some of these chemicals are not only cancerous to the workers
handling them, but can also be toxic in the sense that it could cause
miscarriages, low immunity and even deteriorate brain cells over time. The
chemist explained that the symptoms include, fainting spells, nausea or extreme
vomiting.
Labour unions are
concerned. Kasshun Follo, President of Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Union (CETU)
told Fortune that they received information from informal sources that
workers in the floriculture industry face difficulties. He said that as the
floriculture industry workers do not have trade unions, it made it difficult for
the Confederation to obtain accurate information and that it would therefore be
wise if floriculture farms invited them to see the situation first hand.
But Fantaye Biftu, Advisor
to the Minister of Trade and Industry told Fortune that the Ministry is
working closely with the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters
Association and the code of conduct which is being prepared by the Association
will eventually solve these problems.
“The most dangerous human
invention has become the nuclear rays, but when used wisely it is being used in
the medical sciences to cure ailments,” an expert from the International Labour
Organisation told Fortune. “The same is true for the chemicals in the
floriculture industry, the solution is not avoiding them, but if it they are not
used appropriately it will have an impact on the air, soil and in the long run
will affect the health of the people exposed to them.”
