BY EPHREM ANDARAGCHEW
Ethiopia is the least developed country that faces recurrent drought which causes food insecurity across the country. Hence, the country launched the national nutrition scheme called “Ye Lemat Tirufat” this year.
The “Yelemat Tirufat” is a development campaign that indicates nutritional opulence. As the name indicates “Lemat” is a traditional food container that represents a relationship between farmers, pastoralists, and consumers. It is about getting sufficient nutritional food. The main objective of the campaign is to speed up efforts to accomplish food self-sufficiency at the family and national levels across the country.
More importantly, the scheme, by drawing lessons and experiences from the best practices of the Green Legacy initiative which has been applied from 2019 to 2022, has a plan to ensure national food self-sufficiency. It also plays a significant role in implementing family nutrition by considerably improving milk, eggs, poultry, and honey production across the nation. The “Yelemat Tirufat” scheme, which states this year, will be implemented in the coming four years and high-yield outcomes will be expected. Furthermore, the scheme wants to bring several results such as increasing dairy production, ensuring food security, creating job opportunities, increasing export, and replacing imported animal products with domestic ones.
According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, the scheme, at the beginning of implementation, has the plan to start with milk, eggs, chicken meat, and honey production and will be expanded to other products after the evaluation of the results. More specifically, the scheme is expected to enhance chicken meat from 90 thousand tons to 296 thousand tons, milk production from 6.9 billion liters to 11.7 billion liters, egg production from 3.2 billion to 9.1 billion, and honey production from 147 thousand tons to 296 thousand tons.
Currently, to achieve the “Yelemat Tirufat” scheme regional governments and city administrations start implementing it in their respective localities. Because ensuring food security through increasing food production will help not only to diversify the menus and good access to markets but also alleviates the malnutrition challenges of the country. Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture State Minister Dr. Fikru Regasa said that adequate financial support and urban farming can play a critical role in attaining the “Yelemat Tirufat” scheme since it can be implemented in a small space and for a short period.
Besides, the scheme is imperative for Ethiopia to benefit not only from milk, chicken, meat, and honey production, but also vegetables, fruits, and crops production which ensure a complete food security issue for the country. Hence, the government and stakeholders should support the “Yelemat Tirfat” scheme in a way that benefits the country since nutritious food is important to have mentally and physically competent citizens, he added. In fact, implementing the “Yelemat Tirufat” scheme is key to realizing a balanced food system, stabilizing the market, replacing imported items, and creating job opportunities that have significant impacts on the country.
Taking the significance of the Yelemat Tirufat scheme into consideration, a panel discussion, which is part of the Agriculture and Science Exhibition that was opened last week, is held at the Science Museum in the presence of representatives of development partners, research institutes, universities, other invited guests, and Ethiopian House of Representatives Speaker. In the discussion, various documents were presented to explore the general concept, implementation, purpose, and four-year plan of the Yelemat Tirufat scheme, and the panelists presented various international experiences and research findings. The participants of the panel said that it is good that the development of animal and fish resources is being given attention by the government and various opinions and questions were raised on the four-year plan.
Ethiopian House of People Representatives Speaker Taggese Chafo said that the daily consumption of milk, chicken, eggs, meat, honey, and fish per person in the country is low compared to most African countries. Hence attention is being paid to the development of animal and fish resources. Especially, the Yelemat Tirufat scheme is very important to ensure the food and nutrition security of the country. Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture Dr. Girma Amente explained that the Yelemat Tirufat scheme will be implemented in the next four years for the improvement of national milk, chicken, honey, and fish production and productivity. The government has made various efforts to ensure food and nutrition security, create job opportunities, generate income for export trade, and replace imported products with domestic products.
Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Fish Resources Development State Minister Dr. Fikru Regassa mentioned that the Yelemat Tirufat scheme has been designed by the government to support the development of livestock and fish resources. Hence, he urged all stakeholders to play their part as there is a good opportunity to grow the sector. Ethiopian Minister,Ministry of Finance Ahmed Shide explained that it is important to support the agriculture sector through finance and modern technologies to continue the encouraging results that obtain over the past years.
Various efforts are being made to sustain the encouraging results being recorded by supporting the agricultural sector financially. In order to ensure the development of the country, the agriculture sector has been given a lot of attention, and various projects have been designed and implemented. Outstanding activities have been done in the development of crops and animal resources, as well as in the protection of natural resources. Accordingly, there was a high result in agricultural production and productivity, especially in wheat production. Therefore, it is imperative to support the agriculture sector through finance, he elucidated.
Indeed, ensuring food security is a difficult task for many countries including Ethiopia. In the past few years, the country has done several activities to expand the technologies to modernize and increase the production and productivity of the agriculture sector. Moreover, the government devises various strategies and techniques to ensure food security by modernizing the sector. It has been also making several efforts with a view to transforming the agricultural sector by utilizing the available technologies and farming methods as part of the effort to be food self-sufficient.
Yelemat Tirufat” scheme is also one of the efforts that the government has made this year. The main aim of the scheme is getting adequate nutritional food and ensuring food self-sufficiency at the family and national levels across the country through animal, bee, and fish development. For this, the panel urges all stakeholders to support and play their part as there is a good opportunity to grow the sector bearing fruits as it is helping to increase productivity.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 16 MAY 2023
