BY ABDUREZAK MOHAMMED
ADDIS ABABA – Building resilient smallholder agriculture through innovative policy measures and actions will remain vital, so said Prof. Beyene Petros, Director–General of Policy Studies Institute (PSI).
Addressing yesterday’s discussion forum, Prof. Beyene stated that countries like Ethiopia, which are highly dependent on traditional rain-fed agriculture, livestock and livestock products, are at the greatest risk of climate change.
He added that, if left unattended, climate hazards are likely to increase poverty, worsen inequalities, cause health problems and exacerbate food insecurity, posing significant impact on productivity of country’s agriculture and natural resource base.
With regard to building resilient agriculture, the government of Ethiopia has made tremendous efforts and is committed to promoting climate change resilient sustainable economic growth, as to Prof. Beyene. To this end, the government has launched Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy in 2021 which envisages achieving middle income country status by 2025, he also indicated.
He further stated that the efforts made by the government contributed a lot to manage multiple shocks resulting from long and short droughts. However, climate change related shocks still stand as major threat for smallholder farmers.
As to Prof. Beyene, the recent drought in Borena, Somali, and Bale still depicts that the country has unfinished tasks in terms of building resilience to shocks. “I believe, combating the impacts of climate change by building resilience requires collective responsibility of all stakeholders at different levels,” he opined.
He also noted that resilience building at household and community level cannot be realized without effective investment on agricultural productivity improvement, introducing innovative technologies, livestock feed and water resources, diversification of income sources, and so on.
Prof. Beyene further indicated that the PSI and University of Copenhagen have been conducting collaborative research on “Building Resilience to Climate Change in Ethiopia” since 2019.
He added that the research aims to identify, evaluate, and compare the drivers of resilience to climate change in rural Ethiopia using existing data sources as well as carrying out a targeted rural household survey.
He further opined that the research will have an important contribution by evaluating the effectiveness of different agricultural technologies and practices as well as the role of non-agricultural factors, including public transfers, social networks, and off-farm activities in building resilience. It was learnt that the descriptive preliminary report of the study has been published recently.
The Ethiopian Herald March 11/2022
