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Company eyes
shift from chemical use at flower farm
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ADDIS
ABEBA(August 22, 2008) - ET highland farm, one of
the companies engaged in Floriculture industry of the country, on
Thursday announced that it was striving to replace the use of chemicals
by using Integrated Pest Management Programme (IPM) to eliminate harmful
insects in its flower farm.
An official from the company told The Daily Monitor that applying
the program will help destroy the hazardous pests, spider mites and
insects by minimizing side effects to the farm for it only uses beneficiary
insects called Amblysius and Thytoseulus.
Farm Manager Emebet Tesfaye said during a farm visit by MPs that her
company has been testing the technology for the last seven months
in one of the green houses of the farm and saw satisfactory results
to control the pests.
"… the result is satisfactory in terms of the pest controlling
so that after September we plan to use it in all green houses of ours,"
she said.
She said her company will be in a position to afford the price to
import the beneficiary insects from Holland which she said was 15-20%
greater than the chemicals.
"The quality of the flower is improved after using this beneficiary
insects and this method is the best step not only for flowers but
also for agricultural products," said Santosh Kulkarni Product
Manager at the farm on his part.
"The insects are feeding the spider mites and it is more useful
than the chemicals," he explained.
MPs from the opposition parties started visiting before two days different
flower farms of the country to see the existing situation regarding
chemical usage and the farmers' condition.
Gebru Gebremariam, one of the opposition MPs said they would like
to check whether the rumors were true or not concerning the side effects
of the industry.
The MP's visited farms in different places of Bishoftu, Sebata and
expected to visit Zeway areas.
ET highland farms started exporting flowers to the international market
around December 2005. Starting from July 2007- July 2008, they sent
19 million stems. |
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