Flower production could overtake coffee production as the "driving force in the Ethiopian economy," according to a recent Agence France Presse (AFP) story.

The article, picked up by at least one U.S. media outlet, Yahoo News, explored the country's growing floriculture segment and implications of that growth on other industries: Ethiopian officials expect to earn $125 million-plus from flower exports in 2007, a "five-fold increase" over the previous year. By comparison, coffee exports pulled in $421 million in 2006.

"By developing 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of land for vegetables and fruits, as well as another 4,500 for flowers, we can anticipate a major increase in production," Tsegaye Abebe, the head of the Ethiopia Horticultural Producers and Exporters Association, said to AFP. (E-Brief editors contacted Abebe for further comment but he was not available at press time.)

Government support, in the form of tax exemptions and long-lease arrangements on farms, is helping to fuel the growth and new, private farms are taking shape, particularly in Holeta, "one of Ethiopia's flower heartlands," according to the story.

"There is a thriving flower industry in this country ... the climate, cheap labour and production costs have appealed to growers from many countries," Dhairyasheel Shinde, manager of Ethiopian-Indian flower firm, Holeta Rose, said to the AFP.

This isn't the first time Ethiopian floriculture has caught the attention of the international press. Last spring, The New York Times profiled the country's growing industry, which still faces challenges such as insufficient labor and a lack of cooling facilities.

So far, the growth of Ethiopian flower production appears to have little direct effect on the U.S. industry. Responding to The New York Times story in April, Red Kennicott, of Kennicott Brothers in Chicago explained: "I am sure that we are getting some via Dutch exporters, [but the] African rose size is smaller than what most USA florists want. Logistics to USA [also] are difficult and large orders are required to achieve efficiency. It is not an item for us at this time."

Kevin Priest, of The Cleveland Flower Co. agrees: "So far, we have not used roses grown in Ethiopia," he says. "We did try roses from Kenya but we were not satisfied with the quality compared to our normal sources (Colombia, Ecuador and California)."