ADDIS ABABA -The horticulture farms need to work to ensure the safety of the workers and environment as well as to enable the country fully benefit from the industry, so disclosed the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
According to Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA), Ethiopia had earned 300 million Dollars from flower and other horticulture products in 2016. The sector is generating a huge amount of foreign currency for the country. It also played a pivotal role in reducing unemployment.
Hadush Tadesse, Work Condition Manager at Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, remarked that some of the farm owners need to provide the necessary safety equipment to the workers and urge them to use consistently and effectively. They also have to train the workers on how to use the equipment, as to the ministry.
Approached by The Ethiopian Herald Abate Getnet, Developmental Institutions Law Enforcement Follow-up and Control Directorate at Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Commission, on his part, told that they are working to take corrective measures on some of the farms owners who were licensed before 2005 and violated Proclamation No. 916/2008 directed to ensure social and environmental safety.
According to an assessment made on farmlands in the country in line with a set of quality standards put by the Commission, 23 were found out be medium standard, 14 satisfactory and 33 below standard. Some of the farms disregarded the effect of the chemicals used in the farm on workers’ health. Some also did not have safe solid waste disposal. Thus, they may cause health problems to the workers, noted the director.
Abate added that the commission is working to improve the safety and security of citizens before any other thing. The sector has created job opportunity for hundred thousands of people of which women outnumber men. The sector has played a role in realizing one of the components of the reform underway to reduce the unemployment rate, as to the association.
Shimeles Wube, Horticulture Expert, on his part said, the farm workers use toxic chemicals as pesticides that are sprayed on flowers. The farmers are using Carba Mix and Organo Phosphate which are skin allergic and body enzyme damaging chemicals respectively. In some cases, the chemicals are expired, as to him.
Shimeles stressed that the safety of workers need to be given priority. They should not work under poor safety conditions. The chemicals will affect the overall health of the workers as well as the environment. It will reduce the soil fertility by killing natural composts in the soil, as to the expert.
Despite the sector’s substantial foreign income generation, the commission has decided to take remedial actions after considering the effect of the chemicals on the environment and human life. The farmers need to replace hazardous pesticides by less toxic substances, indicated the expert.
The Ethiopian Herald March 31, 2019
BY GETAHUN LEGESSE
