Flower growing is not the most obvious business you would associate with Ethiopia, but the conditions are ideal. Report by Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe.

Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, means “new flower”. This is something of an irony, given the throatcatching traffic fumes that hang heavy in the thin air of the third highest capital city in the world.

But on the outskirts of the city lies a place which makes a lot more sense of the name. “Enyi Ethio Rose” is a sprawling Ethiopian-owned rose farm covering 15 hectares (around 37 acres). In vast, fabric-covered hothouses the size of meadows, thousands of roses bloom. Computer-linked sensors open and close the roof awnings according to changes in the weather and turn a regiment of sprinklers on an off in a closely climate-controlled environment. It is a very sophisticated operation.

“We can grow 150 to 180 stems per square metre all year round, so that’s 10,000 roses per hectare per year,” says Adane Gebru, the young, Ethiopian farm manager. “We sell direct to Germany and Sweden and also through the huge flower auctions in the Netherlands.”

Growing for the demanding European market is closer to engineering than horticulture, and university- trained Mr Gebru needs to run a tight outfit.

“We recruit local workers and they work on a daily basis until they are trained.” They work alongside an experienced supervisor who teaches them, for instance, how to keep the rows clear and how to pinch out the extra growth, ensuring that all the nutrition goes to feed a strong, slender stem and a healthy round head.

Once trained, farm workers are given a contract, guaranteeing working conditions, year-on-year incremental pay rises and benefits such as a staff cafeteria and clinic. The 550 workers here may earn only a dollar a day, but this is a huge advance on their prospects of just a few years ago.

The dairy farm previously on the site employed only 50 people – this new enterprise is improving the economic, health, welfare and educational opportunities for local families.

“This has made a big difference to our lives,” says 24 year old supervisor Meseret Mekalese, “Before we were just sitting around with no job and nothing to do. But now we are learning and helping ourselves and our families.”

Enyi Ethio Rose is emblematic of the rapid expansion of commercial horticulture in Ethiopia.

“Only four to five years ago, the sector was in its infancy,” says Tsegaye Abebe, Chairman of the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association (EHPA), and a farmer in his own right.

“There were just four or five commercial farms producing flowers fruit, and vegetables (mainly green beans, okra and melons). Now we have 32 – half already exporting, the rest preparing to export in the next few months.”

This kind of agri-business is ideally suited for Ethiopia, which despite the country’s image, has good weather, fertile soil, abundant water and a ready workforce. The potential for both trade and poverty-reduction, says Mr Abebe, was first highlighted by DFID, working alongside the Ethiopian government, and has since been enthusiastically developed in country.

There are now some 12,000 people working in commercial horticulture. “Since every farm worker has a minimum of four people at home, that means we are indirectly supporting at least 48,000 people.” But there is huge scope for development. Ethiopians look enviously at one particular neighbour. “In Kenya more than 150,000 people are employed in the horticulture sector which earns $500 million a year,” says an admiring Mr Abebe.

Adane Gebru at the rose farm also sees Kenya as both the competition and the goal: “One flower farm in Kenya is bigger than the whole floral industry in Ethiopia.” But he is not daunted. “Here we have a bigger opportunity. We have a better climate the Kenya – we can exploit the free sunshine and the plentiful bore water, and the high altitude means the weather is cooler which is better for growth. We can produce better flowers cheaper, and we’re closer to the market.”

This bright-eyed, optimistic entrepreneurialism is a relatively new feature of Ethiopia. Mr Gebru makes a painful face at the mention of the country’s erstwhile soviet-style socialism.

“Before, the government didn’t like market economics, they confiscated private property, restricted the markets and told you where you could sell and where you couldn’t. But now we can sell our product anywhere, we can utilize the market.

Globalisation, he argues, can work in Ethiopia’s favour. “We can’t avoid globalisation – it’s the same for everyone. But there are no import tariffs on flowers and that helps.”

Enyi is an expanding business and before long, he believes, they will be employing up to a thousand people, rescuing several hundred more of Ethiopia’s chronic unemployed. Anteneh, 27, one of Enyi’s supervisors, knows what the alternative is like. “When there is no work, people sit around chewing khat and dreaming (khat is a mildly narcotic leaf which induces a of inducing a sense of well-being, insight and optimism followed by insomnia and depression). They are stuck there unable to make any progress.”

Contrast that to Adane Gebru’s vision of a tradebuoyant Ethiopia: “In 20 years time education will reach everyone. The infrastructure will be built properly, there’ll be roads and schools and hospitals.

We won’t be a developed country, but we will be on the right track.”