Serious charges against the Ethiopian government: Plantations for biofuel and export of flowers encourage famine

The Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) has charged the Ethiopian government of increasing the famine disaster on the Horn of Africa with a mistaken agricultural policy. "Instead of giving the production of foodstuffs absolute priority Ethiopia is gambling on the production of biofuel and the cultivation of flowers for export”, criticised the STP Africa consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Tuesday in Göttingen. "In this way small farmers and nomads are being driven from their land or forced to sell their plots, which are in any case small, to investors who for the most part come from abroad.” Ethiopia has suffered a long drought and low rainfall during the last two rain periods, but it is not only the consequences of the natural disaster which are becoming evident. The devastating consequences of the natural disaster are being exacerbated by the export policy of the government. Genocide-like attacks of the Ethiopian army on Somali in the Ogaden region of the country are increasing the famine. At the end of last week the Ethiopian government asked urgently for famine aid for 6.2 million people in need.

Ethiopia is with its 85 flower plantations the second largest producer of flowers in Africa . Since the beginning of flower production in the year 2000 hundreds of farmers of the ethnic group of the Oromo near the capital Addis Ababa have lost their land without adequate compensation for the plantations, reported Delius. They were in many cases forced by government officials to sell their land, which had previously fed the entire extended family. Some 85 percent of the Ethiopians grow their own food. The government promised the farmers work on the plantations, but it is just not possible to feed a family on a starvation wage of less than one euro per day. There is then the enormous use of pesticides, which are harmful to the health of the workers, and the large demand for water affects the farming of food crops in the region.

"Even more disastrous are the consequences of the biofuel boom”, said Delius. "Although millions of Ethiopians are starving, the government intends to lease 2.7 million hectares of land to investors, who want to plant energy crops like Jatropha, oil palms, castor oil or sugar cane.” More than 2,000 companies from China , India , Saudi-Arabia and other states have already invested. A subsidiary of a firm from Munich is also planning plantations for biodiesel on 200,000 hectares of the land of the suppressed Oromo, who make up the majority of the population. One plantation of 15,000 hectares has already been put into use. For this purpose forest land was cleared which was valuable for the climate and the retention of the soil.

Ethiopia ’s government maintains that the extension of the biofuel plantations presents no danger for the farming of food crops since only land which is not being used for agriculture is being leased out. "In many cases however it could be shown that the land was being used by small farmers and nomads beforehand.” In this way Afar nomads lost 80 percent of the fertile land in the Awash valley to a sugar cane plantation. At least 330,000 hectares have been leased out in central, southern and western Ethiopia for biodiesel projects although the areas inhabited by these peoples have been hit particularly hard by the famine.

Ulrich Delius can also be reached at asien@gfbv.de