STV - Leigh Morris - Ethiopia

Flowers from Ethiopia…

Leigh Morris (Head of Education, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) carried out a STV placement for the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA) from 15th July 2006 until 14th August 2006.

For many years African countries such as Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe have been major producers of high value horticultural crops (vegetables and cut flowers) for export to Europe. The 21st century, however, is seeing the emergence of a new horticultural exporting nations from East Africa, notably Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. Political change within Ethiopia is encouraging foreign investment and the increasing costs of European production, coupled with problems in other countries, has resulted in a number of expatriates from India, Israel, the Netherlands and the UK, establishing flower farms (mainly roses) in the highland areas within lorry distance of Addis Ababa’s airport e.g. The biggest flower producer in the world, ‘Sher-Holland’ leased 500ha of land in 2005 and is now constructing tunnels at a rate of 40ha/year.

Ethiopian investors realized the potential and followed suit, which has resulted in a huge expansion of flower production and a multitude of polythene tunnels being constructed in the regions of Debre Zeit, Holetta, Sebeta and Zwai. Such rapid expansion can creates many challenges and DFID therefore helped to establish the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA) in 2003 to “coordinate and promote the sustainable growth of Ethiopian export horticulture”. The EHPEA then applied for a STV to review their current organizational operation and deliver crop protection training.

As a STV I visited 35 of the 53 EHPEA member farms and delivered four farm based crop protection workshops, targeted at Ethiopian supervisors. These workshops were extremely well received, with the participants sharing knowledge and devising their own solutions to many of the challenges. Presentations were also made to the Crop Protection Department of the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, FINTRAC/USAID (working on a vegetable export development programme) and owners/managers of the EHPEA.

A month is the shortest possible STV placement and to achieve significant positive change in such a short space of time was a challenge in itself. I left Ethiopia feeling my biggest contribution had been the bringing together of the young Ethiopian supervisors at the workshops and the facilitating of knowledge sharing between them. Many of these individuals were graduates from Ethiopian colleges/universities and they are hugely important to the sustainable development and future of their horticulture industry. None of them had attended such workshops before and my hope is that sharing of knowledge within them will sustain.

I think (like probably many other STVs) that my work could have justifiably continued for much longer and certainly a two-year volunteer would potentially achieve much for the horticultural industry in Ethiopia. Such a two-year placement, however, would be made significantly more productive by the integrated support of STVs, who could provide technical back-up from the UK and, when necessary, carry out focused placements to support on a particular area. This would enable the LTVs achieve more and this is where I, and other STVs I have encountered, believe the potential lies for development of such placements within VSO as a whole. Exciting times!