See Which
Flowers Come From Where, The Ecologist, January 2003
"... Kenya spends up to 5 per cent
of its foreign exchange earnings on methyl bromide ..."
http://allafrica.com/stories/200508240875.html
August 25, 2005
Posted to the web August 24, 2005
Complaints By Workers Mar Bloom in Flower
Farms
The Nation (Nairobi)
NEWS
Nairobi Kenya's flower export industry is blooming, but there
could be a worm gnawing it away at the core.
In the last four years, earnings from flower exports have been
growing by leaps and bounds. But as some of the exporters smile
all the way to the banks, many of their workers are weeping all
the way to the hospitals. Some have been forced into early retirement
prompted by ill health resulting from handling unsafe chemicals.
A worker cuts rose flowers in a farm. Many flower farm labours
have complained that their working conditions are far from rosy.
To see this for oneself, one has to take a trip to
Karagita area in Naivasha, one of the top producers of cut flowers
in Kenya.
From a distance, Karagita is a cultural melting point where Dinkas
from the Sudan are as much at home as Kenyans from every corner
of the country.
More than 50, 000 flower farm labourers live in the area with
their families. Most live in the sprawling slums not far from
the Moi South Road.
And when they wake up in the morning, the first thing they see
are the more than a dozen flower farms and the five ever-busy
private airstrips that dot the area, in other words, a picture
of elegance.
However, the half blind men, the hairless women and the many
others with scars on their faces, hands and other parts of the
body do not share in the elation of waking up to another new day.
Their lives have been scarred by the chemicals they have had
to handle to earn a living. And there is not too much of that
either. An average worker earns about Sh140 a day for six days
a week, bringing his salary to about Sh3,640.
Compare that to the Sh7.8 billion that the horticulture sector
earned in 2002. Or the Sh13.2 billion earned in 2003 which shot
up to Sh18.5 billion last year.
Animals have not been spared either. Early this year, fumigation
chemicals at one of the farms were mixed with water but the lethal
mixture found its way out of the farm, into the wild and, eventually
into Lake Naivasha. Fishermen found dead fish floating on the
water. Two hippos and about 12 cows belonging to Maasai herdsmen
also died after drinking the water.
Not far from the labourers dwellings is a clinic set up for them.
One of the doctors there says most the cases he encounters range
from chronic bronchitis, breathing problems,
severe headaches, loss of hair and acute chest pains -
maladies he attributes to overexposure to dangerous substances.
It is true that Kenya is the leading exporter
of flowers to Europe, commanding 25 per cent of total sales.
It beats Israel and Colombia which are second and third respectively.
The figures speak for themselves. And it is no wonder that every
year, at least extra 200 hectares of land are put under flower
farms - arguably the fastest expansion rate in the world.
The horticulture industry has overtaken
tea export and tourism to emerge as Kenya's
top foreign exchange earner.
But for some people, the human cost of this phenomenal growth
could be unsettling. Allegations of exploitation of workers and
a litany of other ills are threatening to mar an otherwise enviable
success story.
Some of the workers in Naivasha, for instance, have complained
about sexual harassment, low wages, questionable promotions, dangerous
working conditions, intimidation and exploitation.
None belongs to a union and so they
do not have a voice to speak for them when the flower owners meet
under the auspices of the Fresh Produce
Exporters of Kenya Association, a lobby group that caters
for the interests of exporters.
A manager at Homegrown Flowers, one of the largest flower farms
in Naivasha, which sits on more than 10,000 hectares, says that
vigorous audits and inspection exercises conducted by independent
experts mainly from Europe have found out that the flower farms
comply with the EU's hygiene rules and the European Good Agricultural
Practices.
So what is one to make of the case of 28-year-old Wycliffe Wekesa
who works in a nearby flower farm?
He says: "The only thing I remember is that I was mixing
chemicals and acids in readiness for the spraying. After I passed
out I woke up at the Naivasha Sub-district Hospital two days later."
When he became unconscious, he had a smooth face. When he came
to, he had a big scar.
Mr Peter Opiyo, the chief chemist and the officer in charge of
registering and approving pesticides at the Pest Control Products
Board headquarters, has an hypothesis on what could have happened.
"You can only add acid to the water - and just a small dose
of acid at a time - and not the other way round. You add water
into the acid and it blows to your face with scorching effects.
This principally is a basic rule and a must-observe to all acid
and chemical users."
Saying the scar was an acid burn, Mr Opiyo said that Mr Wekesa
was either insufficiently trained to handle pesticides or was
not wearing protective gear as required by the Pest Control Act,
or both.
According to him, the board does not train individual pesticide
users. That job is left to private institutions like the Hurlingham-based
Pesticide and Agricultural Resource.
But a supervisor in one of the farms, who only gave his name
as Julius, claims that almost all the workers in the fumigation
department are trained on the job while some learn through swim-or-sink
method. According to him, Mr Wekesa's is not an isolated case.
A worker at another farm, Mr Joseph Alikuru still recalls what
happened to him on March 9.
"Nematodes are hard to control and sometimes they develop
resistance to continued use of one pesticide, necessitating the
introduction of new pesticides on trial basis."
On that day, Mr Alikuru had been directed by his supervisor to
mix divipan pesticide with an unlabelled pesticide being introduced
on trial basis. The mixture exploded in his arms. His skin peeled
off soon after - because he was not equipped with gloves.
Mr Opiyo says it is an offence for anyone to use pesticides without
appropriate gear, including a water-proof overcoat. Yet Mr Alikuru
claims he had not been issued with any, and water-proof overcoats
were in short supply where he worked.
While most of the more serious injuries like blindness as a result
of mishandling chemicals are promptly compensated through a "golden
handshake" package, most of the other claims go uncompensated.
And in some instances, like Mr Alikuru's, one is instantly fired
for filing a claim. In other cases, like Mr Wekesa's, one gets
a departmental transfer.
Most of the workers interviewed said they could not raise a finger
against the malpractices because they cannot afford to hire lawyers
and they needed the money they were earning, insufficient as it
is.
According to them, the overtime pay package, which they used
to be paid used to come in handy. But it was scrapped at the beginning
of the year when the farm owners held a meeting and unanimously
resolved to scrap it. And when one goes on leave, one is not paid
either.
One worker, who gave his name only as Omari put it thus: "The
best thing in the circumstances is to keep quiet and pray to God
because the 50-plus owners of the Naivasha horticulture farms
have a mechanism where you can easily be blacklisted in all the
farms". His one eye, though wide open, is blind as a result
of exposure to dangerous chemicals. But he says his job is more
important to him than a legal suit he cannot afford.
But how come there are lethal chemicals in the farms?
A storekeeper in one of the leading farms has the answer. During
his four years at the stores, he says, he has often handled unlabelled
chemicals. When inspectors from the Pest Control Products Board
come checking, he claims, workers are directed to hide the unlabelled
bottles in a manager's house.
Unlabelled chemicals
Mr Opiyo, who is also a head inspector at the board, says he
could not rule out the possibility that the unlabelled chemicals
could be banned substances.
"The distances from the gates of the expansive farms to
the offices are long and the time taken to get there is enough
for dishonest farmers to carry out that kind of mischief,"
he avers.
His boss, Mr Samuel Gachanja, acknowledges that workers could
be too scared to inform the board about what is going on behind
the board's back. After all, they want to keep their jobs.
But he says: "The board is a highly technical body of professionals
and I urge farmers, employees and the general public to drop anonymous
information at our office on Waiyaki Way, Nairobi, or to get to
us through our website http://www.pcpbkenya.org/
".
According to him, it is difficult for the board to bring the
use of such dangerous practices under check because the board
cannot maintain a permanent presence in the farms. He says the
first step towards curbing such malpractices is by the affected
workers to coming to them.
But can this help all the time?
He says that in the case of the animals which died after drinking
contaminated water, the board could not act because the animals
did not die on the farms.
And, according to Mr Opiyo, some workers at the farm blamed the
incident on the negligence of their colleagues.
Although Mr Gachanja says the case is being handled by the National
Environmental Management authority, the cattle owners are yet
to be compensated and no one has been arrested in connection with
the death of the hippos.
So the question still remains: Who will come to the assistance
of the affected workers?
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