| Abstract: | flower investment in Kenya as well as in Ethiopia. The company ranks
as one of the largest investors in the agricultural sectors especially on
the floricultural investments. Karuturi has leased more than 300,000
hectare of land in Ethiopia, about one-tenth of the total amount of
land that the government has made available to domestic and foreign
investors. The Surya blossom flower industry was established by
Karuturi global, it started its operation by leasing 376 hectare of the
land and registered 531,150,000ETB capitals. This study aimed to
analyze the economic impact of under performance operation in
Suryablossoms (Karuturi) flower industry on the surrounding
community. In the study, the researcher used descriptive analysis and
simple random sampling technique. The primary data are taken from
the residents of that area with direct interview of 90 farmers who
leave their land due to this investment project.On the basis of the
findings, when the agricultural products forgone are valued in
monetary unit the study used 700 ETB and 950 ETB average prices of
Teff and peanut per Quintal respectively for the past six years.
Depending on this average prices, if we consider both scenarios of
agricultural product (Teff and Peanut), 811,043,512ETB are forgone
for the past six years due to the establishment of Suryablossom flower
industry. During 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 the export forgone per weak
due to under performance operation of this flower industry is
20,439,685.71ETB,19,715,376.12ETB,19,074,445.29ETB and
18,687,455.49ETB respectively. But after 2012 the Suryablossom
flower industry stopped the export of cut flower. As a result the
country has forgone 21,311,699.7 ETB per week for the past two
years, which can be summed up to 2,067,234,871 ETB. It is
therefore recommended that there should be close follow up and
monitoring performance of the operator and guarantee for the
government that cut flower industry operates as expected. In addition,
it should transfer the land back to the previous farmers of the land and provide appropriate economic compensation during the
transfer. |
