Socio-Economic And Health Impacts Of Floriculture Industries: The Case Of The Western Part Of The Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfinne, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

The floriculture industry is one of the horticultural sectors that play a considerable role in serving as a major source of foreign income and generating revenue in Ethiopia. The sector is however being alleged because of its social, ecological and health effects in many countries including Ethiopia. This study was therefore aimed to assess the socio-economic and health impacts of floriculture industries in the western part of the Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfinne, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. A mixed research approach of qualitative and quantitative descriptive research designs was used to get the data. Simple random sampling was employed on 295 flower farm employees working in the randomly selected five farms and 50 randomly selected samples from the surrounding community. Questionnaires, Key Informant interview and direct observation were used to collect the data. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 24. The result indicated that the majority of the workers were females (65.74%) except for the Oromiya Wender Company. The mean family size and age of the respondents were 3.03 per family and 33.36 years old, respectively. About 77.97% and 85.08% of the workers were permanent employees and have legally signed a contractual agreement, respectively. The mean work experiences of employees were 7.00 years. About 43.39% of the respondents were greenhouse workers, but 65.08% of them had no job satisfaction. Spraying of chemicals and irrigation were predominantly performed by males. The mean monthly salary of the respondents was 4066.51Ethiopian Birr with the highest and lowest monthly income registered at Oromiya Wender (4684.23) and Ethio Agrisafet farm (3839.26), respectively. About 78.6% and 65.1% of the farmers have received salary increments since they started the job and worked overtime, respectively. A large proportion of the respondents also earned an annual bonus and felt that their economic status has improved accounting for 34% and 66.10%, respectively. About 75.59% of the workers have direct contact with chemicals. Similarly, 70.85% of the workers have faced different job-related health problems where respiratory problems (19.32%) and skin diseases (16.95%) are the major problems. Of the all, 32.20% of workers were working without any personal protective equipment. The mean agreement level of employers on the access to the provision of clean water, shower services and toilet services were 2.15.14, 2.11.38 and 2.59, respectively. About 71.86% of the workers had positive attitudes toward flower farms. However, majority of the community respondents stated that the presence of flower farms has caused impacts such as socio-economic problems and different health problems. About 42.03% of the employees also replied that the farms have moderate impact management. Poor management techniques of the officials (40.68%) and shortage of Personal Protective Equipments (27.80%) were the main challenges in all of the flower farms. Therefore, strong follow-up and implementation of the existing policies in the flower farms are very important to secure the socio-economic and health of employers of the farm workers.