Ethiopia has enormous potential to produce and export various spice crops. Spices and herbs in Ethiopia have a sort of mysterious nature as they are not easily located in most places around the globe. With a view to gaining a much more information about these peculiar crop types, The Ethiopian Herald had a stay with Muleta Abagaro, an agro-economist graduated from Jimma University and working for a private firm as a consultant.
He said, “In Ethiopia, more than 50 spice crops are grown and a total potential for growing low land spices is estimated to be 200,000 hectares. A spice is a dried fruit, root, seed or bark of vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for the purpose of flavoring, and sometimes as a preservative by preventing the growth of harmful bacteria.”
Ethiopian cuisine offers a wide variety of options, including vegetarian, vegan, and meat dishes, all of which are distinctive, tasty, and aromatic. The preparation of herbs and spices in Ethiopian cuisine requires skills, knowledge, and sensitivity, to reflect the traditional belief that food is sacred, healing, and nourishing.
According to Muleta, as the country mainly produces and exports; chilies, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, cumin, fenugreek, coriander and so forth, it is essential to describe the status, challenges and opportunities of spices sector in Ethiopia, for best uses of the potential and untapped spice crop resources.
He said, “Next to coffee, the Ethiopian pulses, oilseeds and spices sectors are among one of the critical components of the agricultural sector contributing to high foreign exchange revenue. As a cash crop, the spice sub-sector has immense potential for income generation of the farming community, creation and development of business opportunities and poverty reduction in Ethiopia.”
Spices have been utilized for different purposes such as to flavor foods and beverages (to improve flavor, aroma and color), to make medicine and perfumes in Ethiopia. In addition, complex or secondary effects such as salt and sugar reduction and improved texture for certain foods can be achieved by using spices, he added.
Hence, he further elaborated, it is essential to review the status, challenges and opportunities in spice production and marketing in Ethiopia for end users, including policy-makers, researchers, students, farming communities and enterprises involved in the spice business or trade, especially processers and exporters.
Farmers mostly utilize traditional drying techniques, which might be a source of contamination by foreign matter, such as dirt and dust as well as the infestation by insect pests and rodents. Most of the smallholders are the least fortunate farmers with low level of education and training. In addition, the spices production system in Ethiopia is mostly rain dependent. Planning and implementation ability of smallholder farmers is poor since they do not allocate reasonable land for the cultivation and development of the spice sector, Muleta added.
He said, “Conventional way of farming characterized by the absence of improved seeds/varieties, absence of planting materials, lack of properly recommended seed rate and fertilizer types and rates are among the challenges smallholder farmers are facing. Moreover, high frequency of weeding, lack of effective weed management practices, different plant diseases and insect pests as well as wild animal competition also contributed to the low productivity of spice crops.
The problems are further exacerbated by high input requirement, poor harvest and post-harvest management, and a lack of modern drying facilities that led to long time of drying. Farmers are using unimproved spice seeds, which have low production and also that encourage the spread of plant diseases.”
Pressure on the natural habitat, unimproved variety, non-adapted agronomic practices and losses caused due to biotic and a biotic stresses were also previously reported to affect the genetic diversity of cardamom, he opined. Production of the Ethiopian cardamom and long pepper are going on relatively well though long pepper is only being produced by a few farmers.
Despite the fact that Ethiopia is being a homeland of numerous spice crops and favorable agro-ecologies and long history of spices production, so far the country is not recognized as a major exporter of spices and, hence, the share of spices of the country’s total export earnings is at low level. The southwestern part of Ethiopia is a region where several spice crops are produced and major trading activity is situated, he cited.
As to him, regarding challenges in marketing of spices in Ethiopia, farmers and traders face challenges due to low prices, difficulty in finding good markets and problems of long distance transport, lack of capital for transport and extending production, lack of marketing information and small amount to sell at a time.
According to Muleta, keeping spices in storage for a long time with the desire or ambition for fetching higher or best prices, increasing role of unlicensed intermediaries in the trading of spices in the market, price instability due to changes in demand and supply, lack of organized market information service to the different actors in the spices farm to market chain were reported marketing constraints of spices.
As to him, poor quality of spices traded due to highly unimproved cultivation and postharvest handling practices, adding less quality water for the purpose of increasing weight and color/appearance, weak organizational capacity of cooperatives/unions, weak market research and promotion in potential overseas markets for natural and processed spices products were marketing considerable constraints of spices in Ethiopia.
He further elaborated that the major opportunities of spices, herbs, and aromatic crops in Ethiopia include the appropriate or suitable environment for introduction and cultivation of different spice crop varieties, increasing local markets and demand by international hotels, medicinal factories, spa and massaging services. Ethiopia has suitable and conducive environment for spice crop production due to presence of varied climatic conditions and agro-ecologies, vast cultivable and irrigable land and encouraging government policy environment.
Truly speaking, he stated spice crops have huge potential for income generation of the farming communities in Ethiopia. According to him, spices are one of the traditional promising horticultural crops of Ethiopia. The government of Ethiopia is promoting agro-industrial projects and has declared spice crops as focus area for development as spices have a wide possibility of being cultivated in diverse agro-ecological zones of the country and have also a high potential for expansion and diversification of export earnings of the country.
Likewise, intervention and regular awareness creation on using improved production, postharvest handling and processing technologies of spices, such as providing training across all value chains and formulating strong marketing regulations and promulgation of proclamation with reference to introduction, production, postharvest handling, processing, storage and exportation is also vital to increase production level of smallholder farmers and economic development of the country. Moreover, researchers should focus on developing and disseminating improved spice varieties and processing technologies for sustainable production and productivity.
He said, “The spices supply process in Ethiopia involves input supply, seed/variety selection, seed bed and transfer plot preparations, seed multiplication, land preparation, sowing/planting production, farm crop protection, weed and pest protection, harvesting, thrashing, semi/full drying and use of appropriate methods of drying, cleaning from foreign matters/mixture, proper packing and use of appropriate type of packing material, collection/bulking of the harvested spices, supplying, wholesaling, grinding/processing at milling facilities and also factories (including oleoresin preparations), retailing, and domestic consumption, and exporting to overseas markets.”
He said although the production of spice in Ethiopia is scattered and fairly low yield is gained, this sector is yet has the potential to outperform by improving the value chain that benefits much share to the farmers and adjustments to marketing procedures.
He said spices are produced in different agro-ecologies of Ethiopia and it is a source of income for producers and traders involved in production and marketing. They are very important cash crops used for food flavor and medication purpose. In spite of their importance, the sector is constrained by different factors.
“Some of some of the factors that affect spices marketing in Ethiopia are, among others, low output price, poor market access and imperfect market information, capital constraints, limited processing of spices, adulteration, mismatch between demand and spices, transportation problems, unlicensed traders, theft, low government support,” he stated.
Besides, lack of value addition, price volatility, weak market research and promotion, poor market infrastructure, lack of effective linkage of stakeholders, lack of capacity building, low bargaining power of producers, limited ability of producers to enter in market due to limited time, skill, and resources are also attributed to low level of tapping spices resources in Ethiopia, he wrapped up.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD 5 JULY 2023
