Perilous Times
10 million roses ruined, 5000 Kenya workers laid off
By TOM ODULA
The Associated Press
Monday, April 19, 2010; 1:34 PM
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Daniel Oyier has been eating only once a day since an
ash-belching volcano more than 5,000 miles away caused him to be laid
off from his $4-a-day job packing red roses and white lilies for export
to Paris and Amsterdam.
Some 5,000 day laborers in Kenya who have been without work since the
ash cloud from Iceland shut down air traffic across Europe, showing how
one event can have drastic consequences in distant lands in today's
global economy.
"If this goes on for a week it will be really bad for us," said Oyier,
23, who sat against a fence most of Monday near Nairobi's international
airport, hoping his employer would call him in. "I don't know how I
will make rent."
Kenya has thrown away 10 million flowers - mostly roses - since the
volcano eruption. Asparagus, broccoli and green beans meant for
European dinner tables are being fed to Kenyan cattle because storage
facilities are filled to capacity.
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The horticulture industry is Kenya's top foreign exchange earner,
making $922 million last year. Kenya exports 1,000 tons a day of
produce and flowers - including roses, carnations and lilies, said
Philip Mbithi, chief executive of the Fresh Produce Exporters
Association of Kenya.
Mbithi warned of a cascading series of losses if the travel ban lasts
much longer. Small-scale farmers who fund their operations through bank
loans will begin defaulting on payments and won't be able to get
funding for next season if exports don't resume, he said.
Some businesses in Europe will be increasingly affected by a lack of
imports, but as long as the disruption is not too lengthy it shouldn't
be a major issue, according to analysis firm IHS Global Insight.
"The main problem concerns goods that are perishable. Imports of items
such as exotic fruit and flowers are being affected and this could lead
to a marked spike in prices for these goods," IHS Global Insight said.
Mbithi said at least 10 million flowers have been thrown away because
the local market could not absorb them. Kenyans mostly buy flowers
during Valentine's Day, Mbithi said. Even if farmers attempted to sell
them domestically at throw-away prices many Kenyans would not buy them.
Farmers have been forced to find alternative routes to get their
products to market - even at a loss. They flew 1,000 metric tons of
flowers to Spain on Monday, from where it would be transported by road
to Paris and Amsterdam.
"This cuts 60 percent off our profit margin. But it is better than
nothing," Mbithi said. "We have clients to keep and consumers to feed."
Other flower-growing regions have seen sales fall because of the
eruption.
"This has affected us 100 percent," said Willem Verhoogt, managing
director of Bergflora, a flower- exporting agency based in Cape Town,
South Africa's airport. "We haven't been exporting for four days."
Israeli flower growers suffered two days of disrupted deliveries, but
most flowers were preserved in coolers, said Shira Kuperman, a
spokeswoman for Agrexco, Israel's biggest agricultural exporter.
Deliveries were set to resume later Monday, to either Madrid or Athens,
where trucks would take them to other points in Europe, she said.
Verhoogt said that the company was supposed to export 11,000 pounds
(5,000 kilograms) of fresh cut flowers mainly to Europe, and to the
U.S. via flights through Europe.
"All together, it could be between 10 to 15 tons that won't go in the
end," he said. "We've advised farmers to not pick flowers anymore."
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Associated Press Writers Carley Petesch in Johannesburg and Karoun
Demirjian in Jerusalem contributed to this report.