In her opening speech to the joint sessions of Parliament, President Sahle-Work Zewde said Ethiopia’s economic reform will focus on three major areas. These are ensuring a healthy macro-economy, enhancing the participation of the private sector and creating adequate and sustainable job opportunities for citizens.
For this purpose, the government has given due emphasis to adjusting macro-economic imbalances and the structures of the economy, as well as reforming the economy as a whole. The economic reform will hence mainly focus on improving the productivity of the agriculture sector. In this regard, due emphasis has been given to improving the productivity of crop production.
Last year, it was managed to harvest 316 million quintals of crop achieving 78 percent of the plan. This has shown a 29 percent increment from the performance of the previous year, when 267 million quintals of crop was harvested. One of the major reasons for the increment of agricultural production is the timely supply of agricultural inputs. Stakeholders have imported and distributed 27 million metric tons of chemical fertilizer to farmers for the current fiscal year.
In addition, the major focus areas in the agricultural sector include expanding market-oriented agriculture, strengthening the foreign trade supply and marketing of agricultural products and replacing imported agricultural commodities, particularly wheat, with locally produced wheat. In this regard, one of the major tasks in improving local wheat production and productivity is expanding irrigation during the dry season. It is expected that vast irrigation activities are going to be implemented this budget year.
Daniel Dentamo, staff of Ministry of Agriculture’s Public Relations Directorate told the Amharic Daily Addis Zemen that in the previous budget year, it was managed to develop some two million hectares of land particularly small scale farms through irrigation. Based on this achievement, it is planned to develop a large area of land through irrigation this budget year. For instance, based on the experiment on three thousand hectares of land of famers and agricultural research institutes, it was demonstrated that 40 quintals of crop can be harvested per hectare. This experience will be expanded to other areas.
Accordingly, the government has given due emphasis to irrigation this budget year. Particularly, a lot of work has been undertaken to produce wheat in lowland/dry areas so as to replace and reduce imports. For this, the Ministries of Agriculture and Water, Irrigation and Electricity, Agriculture Research Institute and other stakeholders have been working closely in collaboration. With this, it is planned to produce wheat on 50,000 hectares of land around Wabishebele River in Afar and Somali states as well as around the Omo River in Southern Nations and Nationalities state.
Daniel also noted that farm preparation has been finalized for the dry season. The seed for the irrigation has to be ready this month. To get the seed ready, training has been provided to finalize the preparation of the seed. This will have its own role for the achievement of the goal and enable every stakeholder to discharge their respective responsibilities. If supported with research, it will be possible to gain 40 quintals per hectare from the irrigation activities to be conducted on the farmer’s land. In the process, the method of mechanization agriculture will be implemented.
Harvested cotton farms, sugarcane farms that have not yet started production and other wetlands of farmers and pastoralists will be utilized for the dry season’s wheat irrigation projects. The irrigation will be conducted by diverting rivers and using water pumps. This plan will not only be limited to the 50,000 hectares of land. Based on the experience and performance, there is a plan to implement it in other areas in a sustainable manner.
The Ethiopian Herald October 24, 2019
BY STAFF REPORTER
