Day: August 17, 2019

The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) organised a consultative workshop for member farms to gather inputs and feedbacks by presenting its draft 5 year strategic plan on August 16, 2019 at Capital hotel.

In collaboration with its project partner bfz (Training and Development Centre of the Bavarian state of Germany) the strategy plan has been prepared as part of its main project engagement on strengthening the institutional development of the Association.

On the preparation process a team drawn from EHPEA and bfz, with technical support from an independent international consultant pursued gathering and analysing various inputs and data relevant to complete preparation of the strategic plan.

Moreover the strategic plan was enriched with the participation of key stakeholders and by conducting a depth contextual analysis as well as scanning internal and external environment, by applying PESTLE/ SWOT analysis. The strategic plan is expected to provide the leadership, management, staff, members, and other stakeholders with a clear roadmap and strategic priorities EHPEA has chosen to realize its vision and accomplish its mission while fulfilling its mandates in the coming five years. The strategic plan has come up with five strategic pillars.

The overall strategic plan of EHPEA serves as a roadmap, maximizes opportunities and minimizes risks, increases stakeholder engagement, and facilitates alignment within the EHPEA, helps to set priorities, and increases effectiveness and brings more impact. It is expected to assist EHPEA in financial sustainability as well as in the allocation of scarce resources to achieve competitive advantage. It also helps EHPEA leaders as innovative in growing EHPEA’s assets and core values.

On the diagnosis session member farm representatives reflected their ideas, expectations and valuable inputs which are of paramount importance   to further enrich the draft strategy plan.

Jogo Women Empowerment Coffee House- Florensis Ethiopia Plc

Florensis Ethiopia Plc Constructing a Coffee House for Jogo Reforestation Site as an Income Generating Initiative

Florensis Ethiopia PLC is constructing a coffee house for Jogo Reforestation Site in which the project expenditure raises around half a million ETB. The initiative aimed to benefits 20 women organized by Lume woreda women’s and children’s affairs office.

Florensis Ethiopia stated that this is one of the biggest CSR project implemented solely so far. This project also creates job opportunity for the community youth in which labor for the construction which takes around half of the expenditure through a contract and the materials supply also sourced from the area youths and entrepreneurs.

The Jogo reforestation project had been managed under the local non- governmental organization; Social and Environmental Development Organization (SAEDO) initiated and owned by the cluster farms to execute several joint corporate social responsibility and communal support activities. The site covered 11 hectares of degraded land and it is recalled that 6000 seedlings were planted at Jogo area in Lume district by 60 volunteers in 2014 and 18,000 seedlings in 2015 and distributed about 2000 seedlings to kebeles, planted more than 10,000 in 2017, 10,000 seedlings in 2018.

There was a plan also on the way to continue plantations and also build recreational cultural houses for the reforestation area organized women to empower them with the intention of handing over the area at the end for the sustainability of the reforestation and rehabilitation project.

With an ever increasing demand for cutting edge innovative technologies in horticultural crops production in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) and Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute (EBTI) are jointly moving ahead to establish a win-win partnership. With a projection of this grand idea in mind, EHPEA has organized a one day field visit for the EBTI scientists on August 13, 2019.

The field visit was made to three selected farms at Koka cluster. The farms were Florensis Abyssinia, Ethio-cuttings (or Syngenta) and Red Fox PLCs . Other Key stakeholders in attendance were Ministry of Agriculture, Environment-Forest-Climate Change Commission, Arsi University and Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research. The aim of the visit was to impart the scientists with first hand authentic and multi-dimensional challenges of the sector with an emphasis in the area of pests and solid waste management for sustainability.

During the visit, a fruit full discussion was made among the participants and all the three farms farm managers’ have pointed out that their door is wide open for any scientist who is interested to address the multi-pronged challenges of the sector adding value to their produces. Challenges need be addressed to enhance the productivity and quality of the produce by mandated institutions like EBTI and EIAR. Thus the move to enter in to formal agreement between EHPEA and EBTI is very much welcomed by EHPEA member farms.

EBTI in their part appreciated the initiation by EHPEA and mentioned that at EBTI there exists a vested interest to research on high value horticultural crops and the opportunity shall be grabbed by each and every scientists of the institute in the area of their respective specialization. Dr Lemma of the institute, stated that the institute is working on the development of Memorandum of Agreement which will soon be discussed between the two organization and ratified by both with consensus. Then after EHPEA and EBTI will enter in to agreement formally to collaborate in an innovative endeavours that will benefit both the institutes and the country at large.

This collaboration will enable to strengthen the capacity of the institute to innovate technologies enabling farms to cope up with the ever changing climate and productivity impacting factors like pests. This will enable the country to harness the huge potential of the horticulture sector. Thus, considering the limitless future of horticulture in the country, envisioning the necessity of win-win partnership and the dire demand of technologies in the sector; EHPEA believe that the would-be collaboration will yield an examplenary model results in the near future. The ultimate essence of the collaboration is to support the vision of the member farms and actively engage in the role that their vision truly happen.

Koka cluster meeting held at Florensis Ethiopia, with the presence of eight farms. In the meeting a number of cluster based issues and challenges deliberated at length. Voluntary cluster based minimum wage, infrastructural challenges such as road, network, power breakage, collective bargaining issues, customs and revenue issues and joint corporate social responsibility (CSR) project initiatives were among the agendas discussed in depth.

One of the interventions implemented by Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) is focusing on environment conservation through both liquid and solid waste management, wetland system and composting respectively.

In line with this, EHPEA management visited Florensis Ethiopia plc focusing on wetland construction for the treatment of waste water generated from the farm. The wetland construction was initiated by EHPEA in collaboration with Floriculture Sustainability Initiative (FSI) and Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) aimed to treat the liquid waste water generate from farms to the highest purified effluent level. Up to date the wetland executed in 30 of EHPEA member farms.

In this regard, Florensis Ethiopia plc has been one of the beneficiary member farms highly committed and engaged in the technology and the construction as shown in the picture below, has accomplished the foundation and gravel bed hydroponics (GBH) with fully concrete material.

The farm progressed around 60% of the construction of wetland in which only the filling of substrates and planting of recommended aquatic plants remain.