Tanzania's Horticulture Most Hit After Suspended Continental Flights
Week-long Suspension of Europe-bound flights hits Tanzania Horticulture production hardest.
Online, April 20, 2010 (Newswire.com) - DAR ES SALAAM - On the horticultural industry sources say in Tanzania that it has been hit hardest of all other industry after the over one week-long cancellation of the Europe-bound flights.
"We are losing over 250,000 euros daily due to non-shipment of flowers to European market." Jacquiline Mkindi, executive secretary of the Horticultural Association of Tanzania said.
"The situation is driving everybody crazy. If it persists for another five days that will be hell for us," she added.
Cold storage facilities at Kilimanjaro airport and on flower farms were full to the brim because no load could be airlifted before it went bad.
Tanzanian exporters freight about 60 percent of horticultural products to Europe via Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Total exports amount to approximately 60 tonnes per day.
Our growers see their uncut flowers getting destroyed on the farms, casual employees are also uncertain about their work while are others are in fear that their daily bread could be lost in the distant Icelandic volcanic dust if normal continental flights did not resume soon.
"There is nothing we can do. We look crippled. This is beyond our control. We keep our fingers crossed that nature will be kind to us." She said
She said the impact of the volcanic eruption in Iceland, spewing ash over much of Western Europe, to the country's horticulture industry could be bigger than last year's global economic crisis.