Many studies indicate that Ethiopia has abundant natural resources and suitable climate condition for crop and cereal production. However, for long, the country has not been able to adopt modern technologies and systems to increase agricultural productivity.
In recent times, the country has managed to change this scenario to a certain extent and agricultural production and productivity are increasing from time to time. There are various indicators that the sector’s contribution to the economy is improving from time to time. Wheat production is one of the notable areas in this regard.
Wheat is expected to play a central role in the country’s agricultural and economic transformation. According to the information accessed from hdl.handle.net, wheat production covers 1.7 million hectares of land in Ethiopia. This enables the country to produce 3.1 million tons of wheat annually.
Wheat is one of the major food items consumed globally and covers 15 percent of the global economy. It also covers 21 percent of human beings food consumption. However, considering the potential in terms of topography and climate, there are various indicators that Ethiopia is not fully exploiting its wheat production potential.
Hence, the country has to expand the experience of wheat production success in Bale and Arsi to others. Currently, wheat is third in terms of area coverage and second in terms of production in the country’s cereal production. But compared to the potential, the productivity level is low.
The low level of productivity in wheat production is attributed to various factors including low habit of adopting improved seeds and agricultural inputs such as technology, fertilizer, the prevalence of disease that affects wheat and weed, dependence on rain-fed traditional agriculture, declining soil fertility, weak market linkage, and other natural hazards such as drought.
Being this the fact though, 4.7 million farmers in Ethiopia are dependent on wheat production. Some 90 percent of wheat production is produced by small scale farmers. Besides, the majority of the farms do not utilize irrigation, which is one of the reasons for the reduction in productivity. However, according to the GAIN report, Ethiopia needs 6.3 million metric tons of wheat next year.
Concerned bodies in Ethiopia have been striving to overcome these challenges. Oromia State, Arsi Zone Agriculture and Natural Resources Office Head Ababu Waqo told the Amharic daily Addis Zemen the cluster approach his office adopted is significantly improving the situation. A similar result has also been registered in Tigray State.
Biodiversity Institute also said up to September 2017, it has accumulated 72,634 crop and horticulture varieties in its Gene Bank. But the question is what then? For instance, after extensive study in 2003 E.C, Mekelle University’s Dr. Dejene Kassahun has adopted the successful durum wheat in Tigray, which is suitable to the climate and topography of the state. Accordingly, it was managed to register encouraging results. The program started with 60 farmers and currently, 900 farmers are included.
While Ethiopia is striving to improve its wheat production, there is also good news internationally. In August 2018, BBC reported that the starting pistol has been fired in a race to develop “climate change-resistant” wheat with the publication of a map of the crop’s genes.
An international team of scientists has identified the location of more than 100,000 wheat genes.
The researchers say the map will accelerate the development of new strains to cope with the increased heat waves expected from climate change. Professor Cristobal Uauy, who is a project leader in crop genetics at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, described the pinpointing of wheat genes as “a game-changer”.
“We need to find ways to make sustainable production of wheat in the face of climate change and increasing demand,” he told BBC News. “This is something we’ve been waiting for many years. The whole of human civilization should be very excited with this because for the first time now we’ll be able to make the advances that scientists and plant breeders have wanted to do in wheat in a much more targeted manner and so feed the world in the future.”
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that wheat production needs to be increased by 60% by 2050 to feed the population, which by then will have grown to 9.6 billion. Much of this work is being carried out by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), based near Mexico City. It is an organization devoted to developing new varieties to boost production for farmers in some of the world’s poorest countries.
For decades CIMMYT has been trying to increase yields and stave off new strains of diseases by releasing new varieties created by traditional cross-breeding. But the expected increase in heat waves caused by climate change has now made the development of varieties that need less water and tolerate higher temperatures their top priority, according to CIMMYT’s head of wheat research, Dr. Ravi Singh.
Scientists develop thousands of new varieties of wheat each year using traditional cross-breeding, where traits are selected for by eye. The process works well but it is painstaking and expensive. It is also a numbers game because each time varieties are crossed it is a lottery as to whether the resulting crop has the correct combination of the desired genes from the parent strains. It can take between 10 and 15 years to develop a new variety and have it in a farmer’s field.
Researchers have now identified more than 100,000 genes and their position in the DNA of wheat. They have in effect produced a map which shows and labels all the most important places on the wheat genome.
The gene map for wheat is a result of a mammoth effort by two hundred scientists from 73 research organizations in 20 countries. Together they have identified the composition of 21 wheat chromosomes and the precise location of 107,891 genes.
When we look at the situation of our country, according to a study “Directives for the adoption of technologies and systems in the production of wheat in Ethiopia,” wheat is extensively produced in Amhara, Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples states. It is also produced in Tigray and other states. Particularly, the highlands of Arsi and Bale are areas where wheat is produced in a large amount.
Let us see the case of Arsi. The geography of Arsi is so unique that it created a favorable condition for productive agricultural practices in the area. Particularly, the semi-mountainous topography of the zone is not a problem to the agricultural activities. Rather, it has a central role for high agricultural productivity.
So far, experts have identified wheat varieties such as hidase, ogoleco, huluqa, gamebo, shorema, hogena, denedea, kekeba, alidoro, digelu, kebeje-01, medewelabu, pavne-76, Et-13A2, k6295a4, durum and tusa. The agoleto improved seed is selected for Arsi Zone as it is fitting for the Woredas in Arsi Zone.
Arsi Zone’s Digeluna Tijo Woreda, Fite Kebele Head Hussen Mussa has recently told Addis Zemen that in the past six years, the adoption of modern technologies has enabled the Woreda to earn better wheat production.
As to Hussen, after the adoption of modern agricultural technologies, the farmers have been able to produce 80 to 85 quintals of wheat. Currently, there are 890 farmers in the Kebele, out of which 400 farmers are using modern technologies (seeding machine). The remaining are also requesting the government to provide them with the machines.
Ethiopian wheat production is expected to increase in 2019-20 but the nation will still fall short of meeting domestic needs, according to a March 29 Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report from the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The nation’s wheat production is estimated at 4.6 million tons, up from 4.5 million tons in the previous year. The USDA attributed the increase to a new government initiative to make the country wheat self-sufficient that includes improved farm inputs and mechanization.
Domestic demand is estimated at 6.3 million tons. Rising incomes has increased the demand for wheat over the last decade, the USDA said.
“In order to close the gap between demand and supply of wheat, the government has been continuously importing wheat from the Black Sea region for the last several years,” the agency said.
Ethiopia is among the top three wheat producers in Africa, with wheat accounting for 20 percent of the nation’s total cereal production. More than 90 percent of Ethiopia’s wheat production is grown on small farms without irrigation, most of which are in the highlands, the USDA said.
The nation has more than 600 small and large flour mills, with a total production capacity of 4.2 million tons of wheat flour per year.
Corn production also is expected to increase in 2019-20 to 7.3 million tons, up from 7.25 million tons. The USDA said the increase is due to the timely onset of the belg rainfall and better availability of improved seed supply.
Consumption is estimated at 7.3 million tons as increased production drove the market price to a reasonable level.
“Millers used corn both separately as well as in mixed flour with other more expensive cereals like teff and wheat,” the USDA said. “Poultry producers are also demanding more corn compared to other cereals.”
As it is noted by the Ministry of Agriculture in a national conference at Adama recently, the country is expected to harvest 406 million quintals of agricultural production this year.
Model farmers are producing 100 quintals of crop/cereal per hectare on average while the regular ones produce 40 quintals. Hence, it is imperative that the experiences of the model farmers are expanded to others for the country to become food self-sufficient.
The Ethiopian Herald July 11/2019
BY ABIY HAILU
