Registering as long history as of human age, agriculture lasted to date being backbone for nations’ economies particularly for the developing countries including Ethiopia. The sector is a means of living of over 80 percent of the population in Ethiopia and serves as a major supplier of raw materials for manufacturing industries and an astral means of export earnings.
But the narration of ensuring food self-sufficiency and poverty reduction has been still a dominant phenomenon. Therefore, modernizing the sector must be taken as a sole option and to that end befitting utilization of agricultural inputs is essential.
The Ethiopian Agricultural Business Corporation (EABC) is a Public owned entity that imports agricultural machinery and inputs and supplies to the farmers and agricultural enterprises.
During his recent interview with the local media, Kifle Woldemariam, Chief Executive of the Corporation said that the Corporation is established with 2.44 billion Birr permitted and 610 million Birr paid capital. As the government allows the corporation to enhance its paid capital from its profit, it could increase its capital to 2.44 billion Birr.
As to the Chief Executive, fertilizer is one of the key inputs that play crucial role in rising agricultural productivity and before the establishment of the corporation, purchasing of fertilizer from the international market was carried out via brokers and agents and such practice exposed the farmers and customers for exploitation. The establishment of the corporation, however, could shorten the value chain and enable to supply agricultural inputs to farmers in a reduced price.
The new purchasing system through direct contact to the producing company enabled the Corporation to save 3.2 billion Birr annually and the farmers to buy a quintal of fertilizer with 1,500 Birr which is a fair price that supports the farmers’ efforts to raise productivity.
In addition, more than one million quintals of selected seeds supplied to farmers and agricultural businessmen in the last budget year. Similarly, mechanized service is provided by preparing extensive farms and harvesting products so that reducing product wastage was possible.
Habtemariam Abate (PhD) is a private consultant working for various firms. In his view, though the utilization of agricultural inputs is enhancing from time to time, still there is huge gap in meeting the demand. The majority of farmers are still engaged in subsistence farming and located in the remote areas of the country far from the main roads.
To transport inputs to their farms, they take up to 6 hours with pack animals. Due to this, only few farmers which have the capacity to get access use agricultural inputs. The rest still do not use modern agricultural inputs. Hence, to reach the poor farmers, expanding the roads infrastructure up to the nearest areas is essential, he suggested.
As to Habtemaraim, agricultural inputs include fertilizer, selected seeds, pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides and herbicides are all in all imported from abroad and due to the fluctuating market, the importation of the products has become very expensive. As a result, it has been unaffordable to most of the farmers.
Habtemariam further elucidated that crops such as wheat and maize grown in the central high lands of the country are highly vulnerable to pests and sometimes farmers lose up to 50 percent of their products due to the diseases. Therefore, supporting the farmers through supplying inputs in an affordable price is essential to mitigate the problem. But currently, some malice is witnessed in the supplying of selected seeds which has a debilitating effect on the product and the environment as well. Some seed-producing companies supply their products which are substandard and the output also severely affects the farmers. Therefore, agricultural cooperatives, in order to protect farmers from such unfair seed distribution, should inform them to purchase seeds only from accredited and pertinent seed enterprises.
There are numerous see enterprises in the places such as Arsi, Bale of Oromia region and in Amhara region as well but some of them have no license and illegally engaged in supplying their products to the farmers.
According to Kifle, the corporation to meet the market demand, it reproduces qualitatively and quantitatively fit selected seeds and supply to the market and plays crucial role in raising productivity at the national level. In an effort to obtain land for producing selected seeds, it could secure 2 hectares of land in Bonga area in South West Ethiopia which could be utilized for seed preparation and storage; for office and laboratory work. In addition, it obtained more than 3 thousand hectares of land in Kefa zone for selected seed reproduction.
As to Kifle, currently, the scarcity of hard currency in commercial banks hampers the importation of spare parts and ultimately crippled service provision capacity of the corporation.
Because of the fluctuating circumstances in exchange rate of Birr against Dollar, during the opening of letter of credit in Banks, the corporation is asked to pay the difference rate worth of 548 million Birr by the Ministry of Revenue. As a result, the corporation found itself financially incapable.
Though the corporation comes up with achievements and challenges, it courageously prepared itself for better achievements in the coming five years.
Kifle further stated that the corporation as a public enterprise, supports the nation’s development endeavor and as a business entity, it competes in the market to gain profit and in this regard, it has dual purpose and crafted its five years plan.
In its planed years of operation, it targeted to provide services that worth 19.6 billion Birr to customers and to gain 1.5 billion Birr profit before tax in the budget year. In addition, it planned to boost its export earning capacity.
As mentioned above, as a public enterprise, the corporation has a duty to support the nation’s development endeavor and to meet the goal in the coming five years; it strives to supply 100 percent of the nation’s fertilizer demand and 27.7 percent of selected seeds demand.
To achieve the plan and thereby enhancing the supply of quality selected seeds, it allocated 45 million Birr to import two incubation machines for selected seeds and allocated 32 million Birr to import 3 harvesting machines.
To increase the supply of selected seeds in quality and quantity, it prepares 3,500 hectares of land and to that end it allotted 159.6 million Birr.
Desalegn Rahmato is a senior land researcher worked for the last five decades for various firms. On his part, he said that agricultural inputs are essential to raise productivity but still a good portion of farmers are disregarded from using the inputs due to various reasons.
In the rural part of Ethiopia, population explosion pushed land size to be fragmented as a result of having extended family is common in the areas. Most children in the rural parts attend their school only up to grade 8 and after completion of that level; they have no other option than engaging in farming simply to follow footsteps of their parts.
Parents also provide portion of the land to their children to support their livelihood and as a result, year after year, the land is fragmented into small plots which in turn exposes it to degradation.
As to Desalegn, when land becomes fragmented, it will be exposed for soil erosion both by rain water and wind. Hence, even though the farmers utilize inputs, its productivity will be downsizing in quality and quantity.
He further said that practicing modern farm depends on the size of the farm land. Besides, it is not feasible for the operation of tractors on small scale farm and utilizing agricultural equipment also is not fruitful.
The current global warming and climate change also critically affects small scale farmers and they are not able to withstand the problem because of the underdevelopment of the way of their farming.
Therefore, to expand modern and large scale farming, the government should eye a new strategy which can shift the stranded of rural labor from agriculture to the non agriculture sector, he suggested.
BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 19 MAY 2022
