BY DANIEL ALEMAYEHU
Achieving the long waited objective of becoming independent and self-sufficient nation, Ethiopia has been aggressively implementing viable mechanisms and strategies as the nation has been under poverty for long period. The question of using modern thoughts and mechanisms needs to be answered in countries like Ethiopia. The country has also set a 10 year development plan under the insight of building a strong nation in all aspects.
In particular, the nation has been going through major changes as the country has a firm interest to make agriculture more technology equipped sector. It is the fact that most of the nation’s citizens are leading their lives depending on agriculture. Previous strategies that were implemented by the nation had been like a leaking bucket which could not bring any change because they could not cope up with what the time needed. To this end, the country still could not satisfy its needs as it could not feed its people so that the nation needs up-to-date technologies in order to find a way out from this misery.
Assisting agriculture with technological innovations has tremendous benefits in upscaling the overall production and productivity. Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with Ethio-Telecom has organized an Expo under the theme ‘Agri-tech Ethiopia Expo’. Documents and official websites show that Agri-tech is the way of using technology in agriculture and horticulture sectors to achieve the goal of increasing efficiency and profitability of the sector. It is more important to improve farming through technology, information monitoring and analysis of weather, pests, soil and air temperature.
According to the Expo’s media platform, the ongoing Agri-tech Ethiopia Expo is nation’s premier Agribusiness expo that incorporates the modern and innovative approach in the Agricultural field. It is expected to attract top-notch innovators, new farming systems, business dealers and traders; agricultural machinery importers, agricultural machinery exporters, farmers and potential investors. As Ethiopia, and its capital Addis Ababa, is the most vibrant market place and strategic hub of the regional market, the nation plays a fundamental role for the development of the regional market.
Agri-tech Ethiopia expo will also add new pulse to the Agribusiness segments with practical solutions to meet the ever-increasing demand being placed on stakeholders, farmers and customers. It will create a platform to open new horizons of business opportunities and possibilities to explore and deal with ideal customers in the vast domestic market during period of the expo and the days following it.
The objective of the ongoing expo is all about promoting agricultural technologies. On the opening event of the expo, Speaker of the House of People’s Representatives, Tagesse Chafo stated the use of doing agriculture that is equipped with technology. He disclosed that the role of technology is tremendous in order to ensure food security and nutrition coupled with its contribution in the overall activities of the nation’s economic transformation.
In good truth, Ethiopia has the largest livestock population in Africa including its abundant animal and fishery resources. Such resources have paramount significance for the nation’s economic growth, and ensure food sufficiency and nutrition. Unfortunately, the nation has taken fewer actions so far on the aforementioned resources.
In order to change the trend, much effort and commitment is needed to harness the desired benefit from the resources. Speaker of the House further pointed out that so as to meet the international standards, it is crucial to apply modern technology and provide disease free zone for animals. Again, allocating equal focus to creating market for local products should not be forgotten.
Tagesse disclosed, “Agriculture is demonstrating promising progress. If we put the same commitment and effort as we applied in the Green Legacy and summer wheat production initiatives, the nation could reap what it aspires in the sector,” adding he highlighted the importance of the expo in relation to modernizing agriculture, enhancing production and productivity, along with improving production quality.
By the same token, Girma Amente (PhD), Minister of Agriculture on his part said that there are certain challenges that the nation has encountered regarding the failure to improve crop quality. The major factors that put the nation underperformance are lack of adequate and quality production of animal feed and inability to create disease free zone.
Though the nation has been in various setbacks, the agriculture sector has been registering outstanding record in the past few years. In its nine-month existence, the “Yelemat Tirufat” initiative has distributed over 34 million chickens to framers. Similarly, 1.2 million bee keeping hives have been distributed. The initiative has been implemented effectively so that the nation is able to provide sufficient amount of agricultural commodities to local market coupled with exporting to the neighboring countries.
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Director General’s Representative to Ethiopia, Namukolo Covic said that every stakeholder should play their role; adding how science can contribute to the livestock sector as an important part of Ethiopia’s food system.
Improving livestock genetics, developing feed/forages technologies, managing diseases in breeding programs, among others can be instrumental to increase the role of livestock to Ethiopia’s food system. Hence, the success of “Yelemat Tirufat” initiative depends on the collective efforts of all stakeholders, Covic underlined.
After a week of the expo’s opening, development partners such as USAID, JICA, IFAD as well as Ambassadors of different countries and representatives, agricultural stakeholders have paid a visit. On the occasion, Agriculture Minister Girma Amente (PhD) stated the role of the diplomatic community in exporting agricultural products. He said that the diplomatic community would play a significant role as the nation enhances its export of agricultural products and increases its destinations given 80% of its export relies on agriculture.
Girma noted, “Agriculture can be done by mechanization. It can be done in greenhouses and in urban set as well. So the whole objective is to create awareness to all corners of the society so that they understand clearly agriculture can be done in all parts of the country, both rural and urban. The second objective is actually transforming our agriculture; we have to use technologies available both in the country as well as imported from abroad.”
The Minister of Agriculture noted that the Agri-Expo would give a chance to the nation to mobilize additional finance for the agriculture sector. “We have already identified the areas where we seek the most support such as on soil acidity. We pointed out not only the challenges with regard to soil acidity, but also we shared the technologies applied and the efforts that are being exerted to curb the challenges so that the developmental partners could decide when to go on board,” he disclosed.
Besides, having visited the agri-tech expo, representative of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Mawira Chitima noted the benefits of such events to the nation. The representative elucidated that such exhibitions have vital role in uncovering potentials that are related to IFAD’s activities.
Mawira Chitima added, “Since IFAD focuses on improving smallholder agriculture’s production and productivity and mainstreamed in to the market, such expos give us hint how technologies assist in integrating smallholders’ farmers in value chain, reaching market, and access to input, etc.”
He further emphasized, “There is a need to develop home grown technologies at early stage in school through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). We need to make sure that people that are importing technologies are able to produce technologies themselves and also lend technologies from abroad as mixed technology is fundamental to improve production and productivity in agriculture sector.”
Similarly, New Zealand Embassy Mission Head, Michael Upton on his part said, “It was great to come and see the diversified efforts and ambition in the agriculture sector. Agriculture is an important sector where Ethiopia can feed itself and many others. Thus, it is important to have the technology and know how to build, but it takes time. That’s where Ethiopia and New Zealand can work together particularly on livestock data and other technologies including production of Avocado.”
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 19 MAY 2023
