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Ethiopian flower exports may rise to $186 million

Isn’t this a case of misguided economic policy? Why don’t they grow teff, wheat, corn, and other food crops for the local market to feed the millions of starving people at home first before providing flowers to European markets?

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By Jason McLure, Bloomberg — Ethiopia may export $186 million in flowers to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East this year, the Ethiopian Producer Exporters Association said.

Exports last year are estimated at $125 million, Kassahun Mammo, executive director of the association, said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa, today.

“This is a sector where we can generate foreign exchange for the country,” he said.

Flower production in Ethiopia, Africa’s second-biggest exporter of the blooms after Kenya, is increasing since the government offered farmers incentives to start flower farms, including waiving duties on imported machinery and grace periods for tax payments.

Ethiopia began exporting flowers in 2001-02, when income totaled $159,000. Exports soared to $2.9 million the following year.
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To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via the Johannesburg bureau at [email protected].

18 thoughts on “Ethiopian flower exports may rise to $186 million

  1. mr elias you are compelled to report one element of the ethiopian success economic stories which is a wonderful growth of the the flower export.however you looked ignorant when you even failed to realize that the million dollars earned by exporting flower can be used to boost the agricultural sector by buying fertilizer,seeds,machinaries etc.are you that moron not even having slight ideas that there are numerous countries that do not produce food but are affluent and capable feeding their countries through mere import. do not keep crying.

    —————-

    The revenue from importing flower is not re-invested, as you try to imply. The profit goes into foreign bank accounts of the exporters, who are Woyanne businessmen, or affiliated with Woyanne. If the land is fertile enough to produce this much flower, why not grow corn or other types of crops? Why are still millions of Ethiopians face starvation?

  2. I would’ve been very exited and appriciated with the kind of business that Ethiopia involved. It doesnt matter how much money comes to the country, as long as it doesnt allocated to the people growth and developement, it is simply non sense. because if it is only if the benficieries of the income are those who are engages with top weyane memebers and thier simple caderes around the country, it is all useless. Instead, I am wishing in the contrary, if the weyane memebers wouldnt get no kind of income, they would not be very dangerous to our people. In general, the flower business is a business only for those who are in power and around them, this cant be considered a gain for the ethiopian people at all. Shame on tplf and its supporters. You guys are making millions of money everyday, while millions of people are dying everyday with poverty, famine, human rights disrespect including harrasements, abuse and even death.

  3. I think growth in export is something to be encouraged and credit should be given for the government on this sector. Are we not poor mainly because we don’t have enough foreign currency for investment in other sectors besides our political problems? We have been producing teff and consuming it for the past 3000 years and nothing has changed.

  4. guest,we have always a shortage of foreign currency.the reason is every weyane and co are stealing and hidding the foreign currency in the foreign countries. Even ethiopia’s national bank has lost it’s 90kg +38=128kg gold . who is behind this ? of course weyane. So exporting flower, leather products and any other commudities and getting hard currency can not chnage the life’s of ordinary ethiopians as far as weyanes are in minilik’s palace.

  5. Isn’t flower bad for the soil and environment? it sounds like a good thing when one see the $million figures revenue reported, which does not trikle down to the poor farmer anyway, but leaves the soil useless after a few years. Just a concern!

  6. What is left?

    Land is sold;
    Church artifacts are sold;
    Gold is sold;
    Camels are sold;
    Children are sold;
    Beautiful girls are sold;
    And now flowers are being sold. What is left in the country, and millions of Ethiopians are still famishing? Just wait, Meles is going to sell the Ethiopian mountains, perhaps Ras Dashen Mountain and Lake Tana too. In his for sale items, one of the last Ethiopian properties he would advertise for sale is the Axum Church, but the Ark of the Covenant, if it is indeed there, would defend its dwelling place – the Axum Church – from being auctioned and sold at the highest price. After all this Ark of the Covenant is the one who afflicted the people Gath “with an outbreak of tumors” (1 Samuel 5:9-10). So it is possible that the Axum Church would be spared from being sold by this miraculous Ark of the Covenant.

  7. The flower business is owned, mainly, by white Africans who have relocated from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. So, in a sense this business is not in the interest of Ethiopians because as the other commenter said revenues will be shared by the TPLF thugs and the white Africans who use the land, and will not be re-invested in Ethiopia.

  8. What kind of land are they using to harvest the flowers from—the more fertile ones? After dozing it with fertilizers, can the land be used again for harvesting stable foods or would it be burnt up for ever? Are they using the land in a sustainable way or carelessly for profit motive only? Can they grow the flowers in the desert by moving the eroded top soil from the river banks instead of using the best available top soil in the country? Whey is production of Teff undermined? Wouldn’t that be better for the people to consume foods that agree with their genetic make up? Shouldn’t we encourage people to consume local grown foods that are proved to be healthy generation after generation? What is really important? Do we really know what we are putting into people’s metabolic systems, if otherwise? How much of the underground water is contaminated with the fertilizers? Are the people in the vicinity drinking from the water bed? If so, what would be the impact on the health of the people? Would it impact the genetic make up the people for the generations to come? Is there quality control? Who is responsible for all these ignorance driven crimes? Is the current philosophy in Ethiopia—“I don’t care as long as I make money?” If we all want to be one sided, closed and impermeable, how can we show sustainable growth? Do we really want to control situations, or rather situations to control us? Sometimes, I say, “Our enemy is ignorance.”

  9. Elias

    Your comment is not less than far more cry of ignorance of the basics of economics! Please, go back and check your economics 101 or ask for advice. Business has nothing to do with emotions but to the elementary demand and supply concepts. Please please as media man, try digging out some of the concepts of development and what it takes to develope for a country like Ethiopia.

    You can criticize on all issues you may not agree but you got to know what to agree and disagree. What you ask is simply nonesense. Ethiopia has immense land resource yet unexplored. We don’t have land scarcity as such. Much of the lowland is untapped. There is sufficient land (without those producing flowers) to produce corn and teff. The problem is the price mechanism does not attract investors to invest to produce teff and corn-the per hectar return is simply negligble compared to the cash crops. But, why cannot the farmers themselves produce enough corn and teff for themselves-that’s what food self-sufficency is? You know, there are countless reasons why that did not come forth in poor countries like Ethiopia. Even leaving the policy and governance issue aside, many of problems cannot be reversed in short time simply because they are structural problems and you cannot change them over night…they take decades. For e.g., one reason is the poor level of production technology..meaning the way of doing things in the rural areas (not just machinery which is not equal to technology). Our farm tech is ages old. It’s far beyond production activity for our farmers now. It is a way of life! it is their culture, their social order. You cannot tell a farmer to change the way he/she does things, (which he/she has inherited it from fathers and for fathers) over night! You cannot do that. There were efforts of that sort all over the world. It simply failed. what to do then? to ignore it? You cannot. Because it is were the pepole live in (in fact 85% of them). What shall be done here? I leave this for you and your readers. But, one thing is clear. Even those farmers that are seen to adopt some new tech find it unprofitable to stick to corn and teff production and preferred cash crops rather than their age old grains. Why? that’s business. In small land (where mass production is not possible-this also one reason) it is efficient to produce high-price crops and sell in the market and buy food cheaper. So, farmers in a way alocate their land to the best cashcrop they forsee. This is one element of the recent local food price rise by the way! Significant number of farmers are now buyers in the food market! The reason behind price rise of green peppers is similar. If green pepper was not profitable the year before, farmers won’t invest in it the following year. Even the government seems not to have understood these dynamics. So,the production-consumption-transaction chain is much complex than it might be seen from outside. Thousands of scientist are behind the computer analyzing what is going on around the world. Just pick an article in this area and try to figure out for yourself. By then, you can be a good critique for us. Otherwise, please don’t confuse your readers or present your questions as questions for discussion not as conclusive arguments!

    I can accept a healthy and civil discussion on this area and am there to be corrected too. Thank you guys!

  10. why is flower different from coffee? It is the same old scheme…unprocessed raw material export, finished industrial goods in import.

    Let hope that something else will happen that brings more value (textile hopefully) but it seems unlikely.

  11. I have a sister who is in the flower business. She is not affiliated with Woyane, her earnings are used t0 pay her start up debt, and also invested back in her business. She also created 400 plus local jobs. With the exceptin of the enviromental issue I have no qualms about the growing flower business. I belive the PM did an outstanding jb for the first time addressing the economy issues in his recent parliamnet session. On the contrary the opposition did not do a good jb articulating the alternative. They had a chance to pint out some gaps in the PM report. Dam if you dam if yu do not…….

  12. Surely, the individual poor farmer does not grow flowers for “export” as he/she does not have sufficent land to grow his staples leave alone export items.
    The only once that are benefiting are foreign investers and Weyane companies. There is no deniel that this will create some opportunity for employment, but is is very marginal and has no impact on the over all level of unemployment.
    What Ethiopian farmers need is the right to full ownership of their land and the right to be treated as adults, freedom and rights based development.

    Rights based develoment now!

  13. Elias,
    Your hate for the woyane govt is taking the best out of you. The flower industry has created thousands of jobs esp. for women. We can discuss the long term effect (environmental) or otherwise but the fact that we are getting hard currecy which we desperately need and the fact that it has created hundreds of jobs is a great start..

  14. Weyane sold everything , even denkinesh, a skeleton which has one than .3,5m years old.We should not focus on about our getting hard currency. Most westren countries even african’s countries like tanzania refused to use their soil for flower production, because the chemical which they have used for the flowers put somany people’s healthy in danger and the soilgotout of use afater giving some production,Finally ,the westren nation got ethiopia for flower production . Ethiopia can produce different sorts of corns or crops and can sell for UN OR ANY OTHER INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES instead of spoiling the fertile soil by using very dangerious chemicals to get more flowers production with in the short time. Reliable sources confirmed so many ethiopians who have been working in the flower’s sectors have so many different healthy problems. They do not have good and especial clothes which can protect them from chemicals.

  15. I think we should welcome any small business activity that would create jobs and be profitable at the same time. All of my close relatives are farmers and except oil seeds, the rest of the crops that they grow are for personal consumptions. With this subsistence farming practice we have, what I am witnessing is continuous degradation of a farmer’s life. If I had the opportunity, I would have encouraged my farmer relatives to grow crops only for business reasons just like any farmer I have seen in Belgium or America. As a summer job, I have worked in a farm in Belgium. In America, I have tried a couple of short term jobs in shops and the like. When people talk about the plenty of opportunity in America, I guess all these do count. Well, if we had these sorts of jobs plus the political stability, I am sure half of us living in the USA don’t need to be here. Although there are a lot of opportunities for high paying jobs in USA, the fact is small business account the most in providing the daily bread of most Americans. I prefer to have many of these small businesses than one multimillionaire. The flower farms and leather industries in Ethiopia are my two examples.

  16. The editor critics: “Isn’t this a case of misguided economic policy? Why don’t they grow teff, wheat, corn, and other food crops for the local market to feed the millions of starving people at home first before providing flowers to European markets?” Hey , the country is producing more than enough to feed its people. Since the majority of the percentile ppl don’t have extra income or other ways to earn money other than as a farmer or pastoralist, every time they have a shortage of rain they get exposed to famine. So what is the solution? be less dependent on rain and expand irrigation systems, create jobs other than the usual farming so that their purchasing power capacity can increase and have variety choices. You may say if we have enough food for all the ppln why don’t we just feed them, why do we need aid? Well those farmers who got good rain and/or used irrigation systems and have more than enough to sell it for the market has to earn decent money (which should cover all the expenses they spent for producing it) with profit- who has the money to buy it? People inside the country with decent income who can afford it and export it to people who will pay good money outside the country. Now who is left? The unemployed, people with little income, the farmers and the Pastoralists whose livelihood failed b/c of rain shortage and who don’t have other ways of supporting themselves and/or making money. Who usually bailed the above unfortunate ones: the government and NGOs.Since the govts revenue is not that much it doesn’t have the capacity to bail every body-so it is subsidizing what it can for limited low income people, farmers and covering partially a junk of other necessary but expensive imported materials such as oil and others for the country economy to run. The last ones left are(the last options we have) the NGOs who obviously has the purchasing power, their money, to buy food from local market or by importing and help the people in need who are totally affected by shortage of rain and who has no other income to buy food from the market. Therefore Ato editor-lets comes around and checkmate your statement-the flower investment generates income in two ways(to make my case):by employing thousands of people so that they can have the purchasing power and buy their own food and by giving the got the much needed foreign exchange from taxation which in turn use it for many others needed public projects or to cover more needy peoples expense in time of crises(like what they are doing right now in Addis Ababa for low income people i.e. subsidize basic necessity foods).so Ato editor, why do you have to have a beef with every good news from your mother(land)?

  17. Eliase,
    Sometimes when I see people who are writing against your comment think of them as “MORON” to me. They don’t see how a flower investment bring damages to the soil and now how the so called Teff and other cerial growing areas in OROMIA start suffering. Flower farming is consuming 89% of the national treasury of foreign currency. This investment won’t even use our soil for growing. All raw materials except some chemicals and labor are imported.All the revenues from the flower are not accounted in full. The regeim for its propganda consumption tell you a figure that is generated from the flower sales. But even for one day no body tells you the foriegn currency spent and the net effect that our country in receipt.
    The chemical is not only affecting our soil but also the health of the laborers working on the field. Some are only fools who are comparing flower from coffee in this web.
    I feel ashamed for flower investment advocates. Better to rehabilitate the coffee industry than advocating for the flower. FOOLS economic policy will make us the poorest of all and that is what they prey for.

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