A consultative meeting was convened today at Afriflower Farm on ways of fast-tracking the process of launching formal and meaningful partnership between commercial farms and Holeta Polytechnic College (HPC) to drive mutually beneficial horticultural development through exchanges and leveraging reciprocally-owned resources.

The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) has been spearheading and dedicatedly supporting initiatives that foster TVET-industry linkage meant to effectively cultivate the country’s horticultural potential towards enhanced gains out of the subsector.

During a recently held joint event of EHPEA and the Ministry of Labor and Skills (MoLS) at the College, a course was initiated to create potential collaboration and catalyze strategic partnership between HPC and EHPEA Member Farms within the Holeta Cluster, in Oromia Regional State.

The proposed initiative aims at fostering strategic collaboration between HPC and commercial farms through sharing knowledge and experience, creating opportunities for apprenticeship and employment as well as leveraging reciprocally-owned resources.

Today’s meeting dwelt upon the exchanges made in-between and deliberated on ways of fast-tracking the ongoing process to wrap it up with successful creation of the formal partnership between the two sides.

Representatives of HPC, EHPEA and some EHPEA Member Farms, including Afriflower, Metrolux, Ethio Agri-CEFT and Hansa Group attended the meeting accompanied by tours to facilities of Afriflower Farm.

The participants have held fruitful discussion that significantly helps the process culminate with tangible results within a couple of weeks.