Twelve years ago, Johnny Lammers left for Ethiopia. After working for a rose nursery for a few years, he moved back to the Netherlands. He’s now been back in Ethiopia since 2015. According to him it would be good for everyone to live in Africa for a while.
In 2006, Johnny went to Ethiopia for the first time, to work for a rose nursery in Awassa. “I was there for three years, and then I moved back to the Netherlands. In 2015 I went back to Ethiopia,” he says. Johnny lives in Raya Valley in Mehoni. This village is in the north of Ethiopia, about 650 kilometres from capital Addis Ababa. Since his return, he’s worked for Raya Horti Farms. “This farm was founded in 2012. In 2015, the owner wanted to go in a new direction with the start of a strawberry nursery. He was looking for a manager to help him to realise these plans, and he found me through the grapevine.”
Raya Horti Farms grows strawberries, raspberries, lettuce, cabbage, beans, bell pepper, tomatoes, melons, chili pepper, courgettes and aubergines on an area of approximately 100 hectares. In their first year, the work mostly consisted of professionalising the farm and the workers, as well as obtaining GlobalGAP certification. “As General Manager, my work now consists mainly of supervising and controlling all production technical processes, the optimisation of the efficiency and productivity, cost control and maintaining and extending our export contracts.” Ethiopia has an appealing local market with about 100 million inhabitants. “Particularly because you don’t have high export costs such as packing materials and air freight,” Johnny mentions. “Yet export is something we can’t do without. We now buy most inputs, such as seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and packaging materials, abroad, and dollars are needed for that.About 70 per cent of our production currently remains in Ethiopia, and 30 per cent is exported, mostly to the Middle East.”
Fastest growing economy
Although Johnny says he feels very much like a Dutchman, he’s not bound to his native country much. “I enjoy being abroad. Most people only know Ethiopia from poverty and drought. Of course this country has issues, but the country is doing better step by step. As a result of all of the developments and the many foreign investments, Ethiopia has the quickest growing economy of all of Africa. Besides, the hospitality appeals to me, as well as the climate, and the delicious coffee, of course. People sometimes say living in Africa humbles you, and I guess that’s true. You don’t always have power here, the tap doesn’t always have hot water, and on some days, there’s no water at all. That takes some getting used to, but once you accept this, you just make the best of it.” According to him, it would be good for everyone to live in Africa for a while. To learn that what is matter-of-course in the Netherlands isn’t actually all that matter-of-course at all, and to realise that the things we complain about in the Netherlands aren’t actually all that bad.
He says the mentality is the largest difference between Ethiopia and the Netherlands. While the Dutch are busy all day and never have enough time, Ethiopians are more laid-back according to him. “If it doesn’t happen today, it’ll happen tomorrow or the day after that. It’s a shame that this laid-back attitude is sometimes applied at work as well, and that the people here aren’t exactly open to change. Ethiopians prefer sticking to their traditional and often bureaucratic way of thinking and behaving.” When asked what he misses most of the Netherlands, he naturally mentions his friends and family. He also looks forward to the good food and the broad choice of food every time he visits the Netherlands. “Going to a Greek restaurant on Friday, or eating sushi or Indonesian. Eating a croquette roll while shopping, or making a stop at the McDonalds. That’s something I definitely miss.” Johnny can’t say if he’ll ever move back to the Netherlands. “We’ll see what happens in future. There are too many beautiful places in the world to just focus on the Netherlands.”
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Raya Horti Farms
Johnny Lammers