Rose Mestika
22 August 2008
Addis Ababa — 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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