"Israeli flower growers suffered two days of disrupted deliveries"
I keep telling you some higher force is sending a message.
"Aftershocks reach African workers; Vegetables, roses ruined; 5,000 laid off in Kenya" by Tom Odula, Associated Press | April 20, 2010
NAIROBI — Daniel Oyier has been eating only once a day since a 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 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....
Oddly, one more argument against globalization.
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.
Aren't Africans in that region starving?
Related: Black Sunday: Ethiopia's Egregious Export
Something just seems wrong about that, readers.
And these are the people charged with fixing the hunger problem?
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.
It always comes down to BANKS, doesn't it?
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....
And here the thing went pffft again today.
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 yesterday, where it would be transported by road to Paris and Amsterdam.
Spain the savior, 'eh?
“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.’’
As a domestic and regional population starves?
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. “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 yesterday, to either Madrid or Athens, where trucks would take them to other points in Europe, she said.
Somehow their concerns always make my newspaper.
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