The joint program by USAID, MASHAV of Israel and the Ministry of Agriculture of Ethiopia has introduced over 2,000 farmers with the Hass avocado variety, imported from Israel. The program over the past four years has managed to export Hass from Ethiopia and find the results encouraging and worth expanding, said Wale Getaneh, Deputy coordinator of the project.
“The reason we focused on avocado over the last four years is because the international market for it is rapidly growing that Ethiopia has suitable weather for growing avocado,” Wale told NewBusinessEthiopia.com. He stated that after familiarizing several thousands of smallholder farmers with the avocado variety imported from Israel and teaching them how they can grow, the project has been exporting Hass avocado to the Netherlands by collecting from the farmers.
“We started by exporting two tons of avocado four years ago. After we get good feedbacks from the importers, we decided to increase the volume annually including many smallholder farmers into the project,” he says.
The following year the export volume has increased to eight tons and then exported 14 tons the next year. Wale says they have exported a kilogram of avocados for $3.6, $4 and $5.7, consecutively.
“When we exported the 14 tons, we made a trial by exporting eight tons using vessel to see the feasibility of the business for the private sector in the future. But the trial was not easy because of the not much developed logistics sector of Ethiopia, which includes waiting long to freezing container. But the avocados we exported using the vessels finally reached Rotterdam on the 36th day. It was encouraging and the feedback from the client was also very good,” he says, advising the private sector to move into growing avocado for export market.
