Agriculture in Ethiopia is the largest component of its economy and employs the majority of the Ethiopian population. The majority of these are smallholder farmers practicing subsistence farming on less than one hectare of land.
The Ethiopian Government has formulated a series of policies, strategies and programs to promote agricultural development to achieve food and nutrition security and build resilience. The government has developed second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) in 2016-2020.
In GTP II, agriculture sector is considered as one of the major sectors driving growth. The plan under this sector focused on improving agricultural production and productivity and commercialization; reduce degradation of natural resources and improve its productivity; reduce vulnerability to disaster and build disaster mitigation capacity via ensuring food security.
As the economy grows and the population expands, consumer demand for certain types of foods is expected to increase. Cognizant to this, the government has planned to gain about 382 million quintals of product in 2019 main harvest season, autumn, Ministry of Agriculture stated.
To come up with this, the plan to cultivate 13.86 million hectare of land throughout the country is achieved 96 percent by cultivating 12.2 million and out of this 86 percent is covered by seed.
Mitigation of threats induced by occurrence of pests such as desert locust is underway, the ministry announced. Therefore, the crop is on a good condition as a result of constant summer rainfall. Thus, officials and experts of certain states told the Ethiopian press agency based on their respective activities on the ground that the product will meet the target.
Dr. Solomon Asefa, deputy head of agricultural bureau, Amhara state, said that 4,435,474 hectares covered by seed during this harvest season. Thus, 120,739,607 quintals of product is expected. The plan was set based on past year’s product 102,952,971 quintals to accelerate to 121 million via using necessary inputs.
“We made adjustment in using improved seed in a wider range that gets ready for harvest relatively in a shorter time in the western parts of the state. Integrating owners of bordered lands, encouraging model farmers sowing by line, maximizing extension program and mechanization as well as disseminating 5 million quintals of fertilizers for degraded areas are among the deeds,” said Dr. Solomon.
On the other hand, threats also encountered that necessitate integrated action with federal state. Among these are; harmful pests and desert locust swarms. In order to protect the pests, 18,000 liters of anti-pest chemical was sprayed in collaboration with the federal government and control system is underway through structure cascaded up to woreda level.
But the locust swarms need extended protection as they can easily multiply and widely spread to Amhara, Tigray and Oromia areas that bordered with Afar the original occurrence of the pest. Unless the protection measure is taken in time, the locust may hatch in large amount and the damage might be severe even for other harvest seasons and irrigation based crops, he added.
Oromia State Agricultural Bureau Head of farm sector Dejenie Hirpa for his part said that the autumn farm is underway according to the plan. As to him, the plan to cover 6 million hectares of land with seed is achieved 97 percent. Sowing activity is already undergone all in all and caring for the crops is underway. In some parts of the state where seed sowing was carried out earlier; the crops are getting ready for harvest and preparation is finalized accordingly.
Regarding input supply, recalling the past year’s dissemination of 4.1 million quintals of fertilizer, Dejenie said that out of 5.9 million quintals provided for this year’s consumption, 4.8 million is consumed effectively. Provision of improved seed is also performed as per the plan except in the border of Benishangul Gumuz where there was instability for a while though stabilizing measure was taken lately.
Technology acceptance and application is not challenging among the farmers except those unable to afford for it. The solution given to circumvent this problem is providing efficient tools that minimize cost and loss of product in a form of lending.
Tigray State Agricultural and Rural Development Public Relation and Communication Bureau Head Michael Miruts for his part said that 1.28 million hectares of land is covered by seed as per the preparation for autumn crop production.
As to Michael, dissemination of 455,000 quintal of fertilizer was conducted as quickly as its arrival in order to compensate the delay from the central supply. Though there was shortage of corn seed in some parts of the state, it was solved by providing 9,450 quintals of improved seed in time. He noted that 25.7 million quintals of product is expected from the autumn crop production.
The Ethiopian Herald October 29, 2019
BY BACHA ZEWDIE
