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Governance of agro-pesticide through private environmental and social standards in the global cut flower chain from Ethiopia

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Abstract

The international cut flower industry is strongly criticized because of its environmental impacts and unsafe working conditions. Increasing certification of cut flowers is used to improve the growers’ environmental and social performance. But what is the impact of this private governance instrument on regulating the use of pesticides? This paper assesses the potential of private certification on governing the environmental and social problems from pesticide use along the global cut flower supply chain. We use detailed farm-level data to analyse the environmental and social impacts of flower certification in Ethiopia by comparing different national and international certification schemes. Our analysis does not show significant differences between these different private standards for most environmental and health and safety variables. The Ethiopian cut flower industry remains far from improving its sustainability performance through private certification. However, certification schemes may enable farmers to have access to international markets and keep up their reputation.

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Notes

  1. The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporter Association (EHPEA) was established in 2002 to promote the expansion of the horticulture sector as well as to address workers’ health and safety and environmental sustainability in the sector. About 90% of all producers are member of the EHPEA.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are thankful to the participants especially flower farm managers/and owners and pesticide sprayers. We would also like express our gratitude to anonymous referee(s) and editor of the journal for their valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier draft of the paper. This study was financially supported by the by the pesticide risk reduction programme (PRRP)-Ethiopia and Alterra, part of Wageningen UR. Additional support was provided by the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP).

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Correspondence to Belay T. Mengistie.

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Mengistie, B.T., Mol, A.P.J. & Oosterveer, P. Governance of agro-pesticide through private environmental and social standards in the global cut flower chain from Ethiopia. Ambio 46, 797–811 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-0914-x

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