Category: Our News

Our member farms applying COVID-19 workplace mitigation measures.

Koga Vege Agricultural Development PLC Started Exporting Irrigated Hass Varity Avocado to the Europe Market.

A consultative forum on the Ethiopian export performance of the horticulture sector and target of the year 2019/20 was held today August 15, 2020 at Elily Hotel.
The program organized by Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) in collaboration with the Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) in the presence of regional heads of state and agriculture bureaus as well as private sector actors. The sector’s best performance for 2012 E.C presented by Ato Wondale Habtamu, state Minister at MoA stated that the sector registored 146% of the plan during the fiscal year.

The forum was a great platform where participants raised the bottelneck of the indusrty and contribute ideas on the wayforward target of the year 2013 E.C. On the closing Eight trophies were awarded to top exporters drown from 83 companies in each category for flowers, fruits, vegetables and herbs. Ethiopian Airlines has also been awarded the trophy for its significant role in the sector.

EHPEA COVID-19 task force team organized a virtual training on COVID-19 workplace Protocol Implementation Practices. The training delivered with the objective of sensitizing the workers in response to the pandemic on their daily work place movement and promote the implementation of best practices. On the training 28 assigned focal person from the farms were in attendance.

The training followed as part of the activity plan on the developed “COVID-19 Workplace Protocol” in May 2020, to be used in the horticulture sector with an objective to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic. The protocol outlined specifically to highlight the importance of strong mitigation systems in the workplace, particularly concerning COVID-19 prevention and containment measure to assist the farms to build strong healthy workplaces and create a platform to exchange best practices of each farms in response of COVID-19.

On the virtual training participants reflected their opinions that the protocol and the posters provided by the association benefited the farms to educate their employees. They also raised and discussed their challenges such as; shortage of quality fabric mask and disinfectant materials, even though the farms tripled their employees service bus availability regardless of the cost they face space allocation difficulty on a daily base are the major issues.

Most of the farms expressed their preparedness by allocating an isolation area for suspected cases in the future and establishing communication with the nearest health bureau. In addition to this farms continuously avail face masks, hand washing facility and temperature check-up with in their compound.

At the conclusion participants stressed on government due attention in reaching out the surrounding community to raise awareness towards the spread of the pandemic.

Ministry of Agriculture and EHPEA hosted a public-private dialogue webinar on ‘Attracting investment to the horticulture sector in Ethiopia’ today June 11, 2020. The webinar was a great platform to present the horticulture sector-major bottlenecks and the way forward discussed at length. On the opening of the webinar dialogue H.E Ato Umer Husen Minister, Ministry of Agriculture stated that the horticulture sector is the country’s major foreign currency contributor next to coffee with a promising potential to solve food inflation in the near future. He also added that the Ministry will continue on creating such kind of platform to solve the challenges of the sector by working closely with the sector players.

Addis ababa, May 4/2020( ENA) Ethiopia has lost about 25 million USD from the horticulture sub-sector since the outbreak of the global COVID-19, according to Ethiopian Horticulture Producer-Exporters Association.

Ethiopian Horticulture Producer-Exporters Association (EHPEA) Executive Director, Tewodros Zewdie said even if “detail appraisals are going on, preliminary assessments  show that about 25 million USD has been compromised or lost due to COVID-19.”

The months February and May are considered peak season for flower export, he stated, adding that “we can (therfore) say that this year’s peak season has been compromised a lot. But we are exerting relentless efforts to minimize the impact and not to lay off workers.”

According to him, “a number of adverse impacts have been observed in the horticulture supply chain after the advent of Coronavirus pandemic.”

Countries have shut down their borders and airlines interrupted operations. These inhibited the free movement of export products.

Moreover “we are dealing with perishable products that should be on the shelve of supermarkets as soon as possible. This requires smart perishable logistics and at the same time free movement of goods from one border to the other,” the executive director elaborated.

Tewodros pointed out that everything was compromised as the number of end users and customers were all in lockdown and not accessing the products. This had adverse ramifications on companies operating in Ethiopia.

“It was a kind of existential challenge for them,” he noted, detailing that they [horticulture companies] had to finance a number of costs like cost of labor, fertilizer, and chemicals without  sales proceeds.

Rescheduling bank loans, financing interests on principal loan, and temporary suspension of the 3.8 dollar payment for every kilogram flower exported are among the encouraging measures taken by the government, Tewodros pointed out.

The executive director stated that horticulture companies had not been earning income while they paid salaries to workers. Thus the support extended by the government through the provision of working capital loan  is appreciable, he said.

Tewodros stressed that “laying off these workers is compromising the overall existence of the industry.” The workers on payroll are the backbone of the industry as a lot has been invested on their skills.

Generally, concerted efforts are critical to mitigate the adverse ramifications of the pandemic, he noted, further stating that “this sector has proved successful in Ethiopia. Even if it is quite young, it has scored glittering success in the last 10 years. So the danger looming on the sub-sector should be managed in a prudent and pragmatic manner in order not to lose the positive trickle downs to the economy as well.”

The executive director underscored that the sub-sector is bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to the country. On top of that about 80 percent of its workforce is women.

Therefore, addressing the challenges of the sub-sector is ensuring the wellbeing of those that are benefiting directly or indirectly from horticulture, according to him,

Fortunately, as a number of European countries like Germany, Switzerland and others have now started opening up “there will be an increase in terms of volume of export.”

Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association has 126 member companies, about 99 percent of which are active producer-exporters of cut flowers, fruit and vegetables.

Horticulture is one of the top five export earners in Ethiopia.

source: https://www.ena.et

The Ministry of Agriculture has drafted a proclamation to introduce contract farming. For the first time, farmers will be able to arrange contracts with buyers, determining prices and what they will produce in an agreed upon time frame.The new bill, which has been two years in the making, was sent to the Council of Ministers at the beginning of January 2020. The Council forwarded it to the House of Federation for comment, since the issue directly concerns the regional states.

Existing laws do not adequately address agricultural production contracts, according to the bill.”Thus it has become necessary to put a comprehensive legal framework in place that facilities transfer of technology, knowledge and skills, and market linkage between producer and contractor to improve production and productivity,” reads the bill.The new scheme is expected to lay out a framework that allows agro-processing industries, investors, hotels, supermarkets and foreign investors to guarantee they will receive enough product to fulfil their demand.

Agricultural production contracts can be initiated through an offer by the producer or contractor; any government institution or non-governmental organisation involved in developmental activities can also initiate and facilitate such agreements.

The bill will introduce two types of contract farming agreements. The first type involves a contractor who is obligated to supply the inputs to the producers. Under this type of contract, the contractor provides the technology, technical assistance or finance needed for production. However, the price of the inputs cannot be higher than the prevailing local market price of the product.

Under the second type, the contractor has to supply the inputs to the producer only if there is a mutual agreement between the parties. If the contractor does not provide the necessary inputs, then payment must be issued to the producer. “The growth in demand for certain agricultural products was very low,” said Sani Redi, state minister for Agriculture, “and the relationship between the farmers and the rest of the value chain wasn’t strong enough to design a legal framework for contract farming.”

The contract must contain the parties’ personal information, the purpose and objective of the agreement, the size of the farm, the parties’ rights and obligations, production quality and quantity and the pricing model. It should also include the type of technical assistance that will be provided by the contractor, provisions for intellectual property, provisions for events considered to be force majeures, issues of succession, assignment of rights, duration of the contract, dispute resolution mechanisms, and the agreed upon dates.

Force majeures include extremely high or low rainfall or temperatures, floods, fires, landslides, earthquakes, diseases, and other unfortunate events depending on the details of the agreement. In such cases, the contract determines who will be financially responsible for the loss, according to the bill.

In addition, the parties can also agree to obtain insurance coverage against such force majeures with an understanding of who pays the premium for the insurance.The duration of the contract depends on the nature of the contract and production method; however, the Ministry of Agriculture may determine the duration with a special directive depending on the nature of the agreement.”We expect the bill to be legislated by the end of the year,” Sani said.

Even though the bill will help modernise the agricultural sector, it is not a long-term solution to the country’s need for sustainable food security, according to an agricultural economist who asked to remain anonymous. It is only applicable to a limited number of products, including oilseeds, sugarcane and sesame, because the country’s current levels of production do not satisfy the demand. The remainder is imported from foreign sources at a high cost, but this new bill will help fill in the gap, according to him.

“The scheme has to assume the floor price of the product at the time of the delivery, considering there might be price fluctuations,” the expert said.

Addis Ababa, March 2, 2020 (FBC) –Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopian) Cargo and Logistics Services, has won the ‘International Air Cargo Marketer of the Year’ Award.Ethiopian, Africa’s largest network cargo operator and multi-award winner, won the award at the 2020 STAT International Award for Excellence in Air Cargo which was held last week in Mumbai, India.

It won the award for its valuable contribution to the air cargo industry in a highly competitive and one of the fastest growing markets in the world, said the airlines in a statement.

Commenting on the award, Ethiopian Group CEO Mr. Tewolde Gebremariam, remarked, “We are honored to have won the ‘International Air Cargo Marketer of the Year’ award which bears testimony to our leading cargo and logistics services in Africa and different parts of the world, catalyzing multi-faceted growth in all the regions we serve.

We have been investing heavily in facilities and freighters which enabled us to continuously expand our services and deliver safe, secure, dependable and competitive cargo and logistics services worldwide. The award will spur us to further excel in our operations.”

Ethiopian Cargo & Logistics Services has built the largest cargo terminal in Africa with a capacity of close to 1 million tons annually.It delivers cargo services spanning across 57 international destinations in Africa, the Gulf, Middle East, Asia, North Americas, Latin America and Europe with 10 B777F and two B737F aircrafts.

In the 2018/19 fiscal year, Ethiopian Cargo & Logistics Services uplifted a total of 432,417,404 kg cargo.