EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a good news since the flower exporters are affiliated with the {www:Woyanne} regime, and the fertilizer they use to grow flowers for export is destroying nearby lakes and rivers.

By Aidan Jones | The Christian Science Monitor

Sabeta, Ethiopia – A local pop song trills out from the radio, filling the cavernous packing hall at the Ethio Highland Flora farm in Sabeta, a 45-minute drive from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.

Dozens of workers tackle a seemingly endless stack of exotically named roses, separating the short stems and rotten petals from the bright Valentino, Duo Unique, Wild Calypso, and Alyssa blooms destined for Europe.

Most of the farm’s 400 employees earn less than a dollar a day, but it is a steady wage in one of the world’s poorest nations where 80 percent of the population lives off the land.

This year the 20-hectare farm, a sprawl of irrigated and temperature-controlled greenhouses, is set to beat its target for growing, cutting, and exporting 21 million stems.

That is a 15 percent rise on its contribution to the 1.5 billion stems exported by Ethiopia in 2008, earning an estimated $175 million for the industry.

But the positive figures belie a dramatic slump in demand for flowers as the global economic crisis forces European consumers, Ethiopia’s main market, to curb spending on perceived luxuries. It’s a tough blow for Ethiopia, where flower power was touted to supplant coffee as Ethiopia’s main export and highest earner of foreign exchange.

Many analysts now fear that, without swift assistance, Ethiopia’s nascent flower industry will wilt in the heat of global recession.

“We’re not talking about falling profit this year, just survival,” says farm manager Emebet Tesfaye. “Even Valentine’s Day was down from last year. The problem is Europeans don’t want flowers right now. The buyers in Amsterdam control the market, and they are setting prices very low – there is no minimum price for our stems. Every loss is on the growers’ side: transport, water, electricity, wages, and even fees to the rose breeders.”

Sales down on Valentine’s Day and ‘Mothering Sunday’

Sales forecasts are traditionally pegged to an expected bonanza at Valentine’s Day and Mothering Sunday (Europe’s version of Mother’s Day on March 22). This year Ethio Highland Flora Farm sold 20 to 30 percent fewer flowers, punching a hole in expected revenues and compounding the pain caused by low stem prices.

Prices per stem are now 10 cents (euro) or less, down 15-20 percent from last year.

On bad days, the flower auction houses of Amsterdam – where the majority of stems from Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, and Tanzania vie for buyers – have reported dips of up to 40 percent.

Four farms have already filed for bankruptcy – out of 85 – while at least half of the remainder are operating at a loss.

Oh, what a difference half a year makes

Just six months ago, things looked very different.

Foreign and local investors piled into the sector lured by predictions of revenues of $1 billion within five years, tax incentives, and a surfeit of cheap labor.

One thousand hectares of land went under cultivation, more than 50,000 people were directly employed on the farms, with tens of thousands earning a crust along the supply chain, as Ethiopia threatened the regional primacy of Kenya’s longer-established floriculture.

Keen to banish Ethiopia’s famine-ridden reputation, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi played his part, hailing flowers as the flagship of an increasingly buoyant economy – the government says that in 2008 gross domestic product grew at just under 10 percent.

And it is to him that the flower farmers are now turning, calling for a reprieve from the banks which are nervously eyeing their loans, and the freight firms and airlines, who currently charge $1.85 per kilo of cargo to fly the flowers to Europe.

“This is a problem caused by the developed world, but we are paying for it in Africa,” says Tsegaye Abebe, president of the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA). “We can tolerate low market prices for a time, but if prices continue like this for many more months our industry will be under serious threat. It is time for all the businesses with a stake in the sector to help each other out.”

Despite a recent pledge to support the industry “through thick and thin,” Meles – as he is widely known – can not hold back the confluence of global and local forces sweeping across the Ethiopian flower business.

Too much power in hands of European middlemen?

It is a tough trade; cheap and high quality stems pour into the market from across Africa and Latin America, putting European buyers in the driving seat.

Prices are set low in the knowledge there is a surplus of supply from desperate growers, and farm owners have yet to build the capacity to trade directly with supermarkets – the major sale point for flowers.

As a newcomer to the market, Ethiopia does not benefit from the same economies of scale as neighboring Kenya, raising fears it is particularly vulnerable to the price shock.

Mr. Tsegaye believes survival can be secured through a diversification of products to include herbs, fruits, and vegetables, and markets to reach Japan, Middle East, Russia, and the United States. “But that depends on the short and medium term being kind to us,” he says.

The social impact of decline will also be keenly felt in Sabeta – where small holding farmers were convinced to sell their land to flower farms by the promise of big rewards to come.

The majority of flower workers are women, and the recession threatens to stymie plans to empower them with minimum labor standards and unions.

It has deflated Emebet Tesfaye’s hopes. She may soon be left with the awkward choice of dumping some of the 70,000 flowers a day produced at Ethio Highland or flooding the market with roses no one is buying.

A recent visit to a Dutch auction house intensified her gloom as she witnessed the pecking order of a market which roots flower-producing nations to the bottom.

“Each morning the buyers look at their computer screens and click one button that determines the life of all these people,” she explains gesturing to the female packers. “We have no power.”

Addis Neger, a local Amharic language newspaper in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa reports that a former judge who is currently prominent lawyer is among 40 people jailed after being accused of plotting to assassinate Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi and other high ranking Woyanne regime officials.

Goshyirad Tsegaw, who along with Birtukan Mideksa has presided over a high-profile case of the former Defense Minster and top ranking Woyanne official, Siye Abrah, was arrested on April 24, according to Addis Neger

Goshyirad got his first degree from the Addis Ababa University in 1999 and started his career working as an Assistant Judge at the Federal First Instance court where he worked for a year. He served for eight more years as a judge in the same court where he came to preside over Siye’s case.

Starting from 2009, he has been practicing law independently and doing his second degree at the Addis Ababa University in Human Rights Law.

Sources: Addis Neger and Addis Journal

Tag: Ethiopian News

By Tedla Asfaw

I am not endorsing the Ginbot 7 party led by Dr Birhanu Nega on its first anniversary; rather to congratulate the Ethiopian masses who went out in millions in all corners of Ethiopia and voted TPLF out of office four years ago on May 15, 2005 (Ginbot 7, 1997 Eth. Cal.). I am also remembering the fallen heroes — unarmed peaceful protesters — who were gunned down by Agazi commandos on broad day light.

Here is my difference with former minister of defense Ato Seye Abraha, one of the founders of TPLF, who wanted to accuse both the victims and crime perpetrators by characterizing what follows May 15 elections as “unprepared for peaceful election.” Wait a minute, how did he forget the Miazia 30 rally of more than two million people in Addis Ababa who went out on pre-election rally without a single incident? The only reason our people were left alone on that day was because of the arrogance of TPLF cadres who believed that the paid rally in support of TPLF could beat any opposition by the Kinijit/CUD.

The May 15, however, proved that TPLF arrogance was unparalleled and it lost overwhelmingly in Addis Ababa and to avoid defeat it massacred our peaceful people. That is the fact and any attempt to paint our people as “violent” is just covering up the TPLF crime.

The theory of participating on peaceful election in Ethiopia has been dead since May 16, 2005 after our people’s aspiration for democracy was stopped by the brutal forces of TPLF leaving more than two hundred dead and tens of thousands in concentration camps. Now TPLF is preparing to control power and get legitimacy it never got during the last eighteen years by preparing a fake election and recruiting new comers on Mederk platform run by Gebru Asrat and Seye Abraha.

Accusing our people for violent behavior and “opposition organizations” unprepared to challenge the “strong and powerful TPLF” they are working to get a seat with their former brothers until “the unorganized oppositions” are ready in 2015 to challenge TPLF. We haven’t heard from them on the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the army which Bulcha Demeksa accurately characterized as pre-election terror.

Another major election campaign was orchestrated by Meles Zenawi in the Amhara Region a month ago. A poem was read to congratulate “Talaku Mereyachenen” Meles Zenawi and read like this: “Do not worry, all of them will come back to you, Meles; Hulum Meles Bilew Yematalu.”

The person who wrote this poem accurately captured the so called participants of the the 2010 peaceful elections led by Medrek.

Our people’s readiness to elect their leaders peacefully was well documented even by those who financed and armed TPLF and what our people demand right now is their right to organize, speak and print freely; not another Lidetu Ayalew type Democracy Talk. Without basic rights of democracy, the new formation like “Mederek challenging TPLF/EPRDF” in the June 2010 election is just betrayal of our people much worst than Lidetu Ayalew’s betrayal four years ago.

TPLF is running a one party state until our people economy reached to that of Communist China. It transferred itself to a “development party” and can now be called also Tigray People Development Party (TPDP). Do not worry about the name Tigray — they mean business and is all clear for all doubters. TPLF/TPDP Oromo’s wing was dealt with before and the Amhara wing of TPDP is being hit by imprisoning Amhara officers in the army who were “conspiring” with Ginbot 7 weeks ago.

Does any one still doubt that TPLF does not mean EPRDF. I hope the Mederek people will tell us if there is anybody in EPRDF except TPLF that has real power. I hope they will not mention Teferra Walewa who will soon be accused of eating the left over “sugar” from Pastor Tamrat Layne who was thrown in jail for over decade for “sugar crime” (profiting from the sale of sugar).

Our generation has the same choice our fathers and mothers had seventy five years ago: either to live in dignity or die fighting. I choose the latter one and support all real oppositions, including Ginbot 7, for the common struggle to remove TPLF and empower our people.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])