Kenyans destroying flowers unable to transport to Europe. by Milota Sidorova

Icelandic volcano erupting huge masses of dust and sand has been probably the most discussed topic last days. It halted the aviation traffic all over the European continent and was the reason to close the aviation space all over the continent. It means also intercontinental lines. So with one cloud, the significant part of the world has been impacted. This is not only a case of thousands of cancelled personal flights, thousands of people unable to move off their destinations, but also product transport and distribution. This morning, I have seen the news about African flower farmers having more than a hard times with the cloud. Flowers, the third largest income for Kenya we! re shipped to Europe, mostly to Scandinavia or to America. But for five days, the shipments have been delayed. What does it mean five days for trimmed flower? It means the whole life – from the first cut until the slow death at customer's house. Farmers and distribution companies have to quickly deal with the problems of storage, so empty halls at airports turned into cold storages full of flowers. But it isn't working all the time. Somewhere companies ordered to destroy whole shipments of carefully grown flowers. It reminds me of burning crops and wheat, because it was too expensive to send it to hungry people in Africa.Luckily, we don't eat flowers.But flowers feed thousands of workers in Kenya. Officials said it would be hard to get money back and to pay the workers, because they didn't had the money at the moment. For this moment, African famers hope for aviation traffic comeback and lowering the loss. For now, they keep on with the flower harvests and for now, E! uropeans the question rises? What happens if somehow we lose s! trategic lines all over the world? What if it would be China, unable to ship the goods in here? What would we do then? This time it may be flower, the other time, it may be clothes, food, electronic, furniture, everyting?Do we have some plan B?

related story (sgx17043): http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20100417-european-flight-ca...

by Milota Sidorova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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