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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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