Category: Our News

EHPEA in collaboration with Fair Trade Africa (FTA) organized a workshop on “Occupational Safety and Living Wage Determination”. On this workshop representative from International Labor Organization (ILO), Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Union (CETTU), Regional Bureau of social and Labor Affairs, National Federation of Farm Plantation Fishery Agro-Industry Trade Union (NFFPFATU) , and Six Fair trade certified farms discussed the current practices in the horticulture sector in related to Occupational Health and Safety, living wage and brainstorm possible scenarios for future significant practical and constructive solutions toward sustainability.

As part of EHPEA’s key intervention areas on advocacy for the development of Ethiopian horticulture investment business climate, farm visit and a discussion platform program held at Bishoftu cluster on Saturday November 27, 2021.

On visit program a higher official delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture State Minister Dr. Sofia Kassa, W/ro Genet Abdela Advisor to Ministry of Agriculture Minister Ato Oumer Husen, and Ato Mekonnen Solomon who is Director of horticulture have joined the visit to 5 EHPEA member farms namely; Friendship Flower PLC, Beti Ornamental Plc., Rainbow Colors Plc., Yassin Legesse Flower Farm and Roshanara Rose Plc.

The delegation discussed at length on the cluster challenges about the delayed inking of the land lease agreements, suspension of investment expansion request, intermittent outage of power and delay in issuance of import permit.

The Oromia Investment and Industry Bureau Head, Dr. Teshome and his team set a direction on the way forward to the Regional Government cabinet to pass decision on the lease amount to expedite the signing of the lease agreement for the 6 farms in Bishoftu, to address expansion requests in the framework of the law & to adjust the lease period to 30 years for those farms with in the rural administration.

EHPEA TVET Center has delivered a Farm Safety officer training for EHPEA member farms located in Debrezeit, Koka, and Ziway Clusters, from 23 – 26 Nov 2021 at its headquarter in Addis Ababa. The training has aimed to empower participants with advanced knowledge and practical skills in workplace worker safety, welfare, hazard identification, risk assessment, OSH policy, OSH procedure, and accident prevention techniques and mitigating actions. The training had 3 days class session and a one-day farm visit to Herburg Rose for experience sharing purposes.

EHPEA delivered a training on “Sexual Gender Based Violence & Reproductive Health Right” for its member farm management staffs with an objective to equip them with the knowledge of the contribution factor of Gender Sensitive Management in the case of Horticulture sector.

The training held at EHPEA office on November 18-19,2021.

EHPEA TVET Center delivered training for farm environment officers on “Environment Management and Risk Assessment” from November 9-12/2021. The training aimed at reducing environmental footprint and enhancing sustainable production. Participants also shared their experience and knowledge on how to accelerate the process of achieving safe and reliable production via the visit to Florensis Ethiopia Plc.

EHPEA in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture organized a discussion platform on the Ethiopian Horticulture investment challenges with the presence of major sectoral players from government office and private sector.

On the meeting, proposed solutions to overcome the existing bottleneck of the Horticulture investment presented by the Association and discussed the way forward at length.It was also stated that a MoU will be signed with the respective government offices for the alignment of strategic work.

The importance of having such platform on a monthly base for the betterment of the industry investment also recommended by the participants.