Evaluation and Development of Floriculture Supply Chain in Ethiopia, to Attenuate Environmental Impact and Logistics Cost
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Date
2013-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Ethiopia is now Africa‟s second largest flower exporter after Kenya, with its export earnings growing by 500% over the past year. In 2008, there were 81 flower farms employing around 50,000 workers (over 70% women). Ethiopia‟s flower exports reached 100 million USD and the industry is one of the top four sources of foreign exchange for the country. In less than a decade of experience, Ethiopia ranks second in Africa for flower exports, and fifth in Extra-EU exporters to the EU market. Annual average growth in number of firms and exports in 2003 to 2008 is around 380% and 638% respectively.
Ethiopian growers can produce a very high quality product, which has a big demand on the market in the advantage of higher altitude of the country but at this moment it is still quiet important to bring this product correctly and on time into that market. This can be achieved by designing a good logistic system. That is why the main objective of this research is being describing the supply chain of floriculture in Ethiopia, determine main bottlenecks and develop efficient methodology in line with coordination possibilities and route optimization to reduce logistic cost and environmental impact.
The majority of the farms are located in about 50 km radius of the capital city, Addis Ababa. These cluster areas will create an opportunity for collaboration among producers. From analysis results there is a probability of collaboration between farms found in these three clusters in transporting their products inland and they can save the inland transport cost significantly.
Supply chain of floriculture in Ethiopia consists of different activities categorized as farm operations, inland transport, and cargo activities. In the farm activities the operation starts from cutting. Cutting is done by leaving two leaves at bottom of the rose tree. After cutting, the stem is collected in water bucket and taken to pre-cooling room and kept for 8-10hrs at temperature of 4-6 oc. After pre-cooling the sorting and packaging process begins. The packed flowers kept in cold room for 1 and ½ days at temperature of 2oc. Finally the bundles of flowers are placed in carton ( 23 bundles/carton) and placed back to the cold room. The next activity is inland transport operation and the last activity is the cargo transport to the Dutch auction market or other whole sellers.
Most farms in Ethiopia use ground water for irrigation purpose this will create continues depletion of ground water. The use of chemicals will also create contamination of ground water and streams near to the farm locations are also getting contaminated by the chemicals used even if the effect is not significant the proper use of chemicals and safe disposal of west should be made by trained professionals for chemical protection. The chemical sprayers wear mask during chemical spraying but most of the workers are not trained for this special purpose. This will put the health of the workers in danger.
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Transport Engineering Stream