Despite the big potential of agriculture in Ethiopia, the low level of engineering technology input in the sector has been one of the main constraints hindering the modernization of the country’s agriculture and food production systems.
To solve the challenges and flourish the sector, recently the government has drafted a national mechanization strategy to ‘‘increase national food production and security through enhanced and sustainable use of agricultural mechanization technologies.’’
Tamirat Yohannes Senior Mechanization Expert in the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Directorate said that as the overall economic growth of the country depends on the performance of agriculture and, a number of agricultural development strategies and plans have been formulated.
According to him to achieve the goal of economic development plan, mechanization of the agriculture is mandatory and to this end, the Ministry has been empowering the farmers to use technology to undertake agricultural tasks by working together with the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and government and nongovernment organizations and stakeholders. And therecently innovated two wheel tractor is the demonstration of such cooperation, he said.
The tractor would have significant contributions in terms of increasing product and productivity, minimizing the burden of the farmers and speeding up agricultural mechanization.
“Though previously there were different tractors, the currently originated tractor is different from others in giving multipurpose services.”
According to him, the tractor is found to be economical and can be used easily in dry and wet seasons and, in stony or hilly areas.
He underscored that as the highest contributions of agricultural products come from smallholder farmers, the government has put a clear agricultural development strategy that gives due emphasis on smallholder farmers. And provision of improved technology to smallholder farmers and commercialization of small scale farming is the basis of the development strategy.
He noted that for the success of the mechanization of the sector, government established institutions like Agricultural Mechanization Service Enterprise (AMSE) with multiple objectives to render agricultural mechanization services on rental basis, provide maintenance services, and supply spare-To encourage importers, importing agricultural machinaries government has allowed tax free importing, he further noted.
Obse Wegi junior Mechanization Expert in the Ministry on his part said that in order to mechanize the sector government has been establishing institutions that support the farmers in their respective responsibilities and the institutions are providing technical, financial and professional supports for the farmers.
According to him, mechanization enables to reduce labour shortage through replacing animal and human power by machine power and increases the yield of land per unit of area of lands.
The Ministry provides support for farmers via identification of essential type of modern agricultural equipment needed, like type of combiner, water pump, tractor, and plough based on the type of respective landscape by undertaking a research, he further said.
The Ministry is working in collaboration with small scale engineering industries and it encourages these industries in different ways and while some of them import different modern agricultural machinery from abroad, others fabricate the machineries within the country. The Ministry conducts the evaluation and controlling activities over these industries.
He stressed that the attitude and skill of farmers towards the use of agricultural technology is becoming improved from time to time.
In earlier years, lack of skilled manpower in the sector had been a main challenge to mechanize the sector. However, recently the government has enabled to alleviate the challenge by establishing agricultural technology centres, he remarked.
The Ethiopin Herald May 1/2019
BY TAMERU REGASA
