Ethiopia’s agriculture has shown remarkable resilience over many centuries but is now increasingly demanding reformation and transformation. The sector has been purely accompanied with a steadily increasing Ethiopian population with millennia-old tools and systems of production. Ethiopia is one of the original centers for crop and livestock domestication that started ten thousand years ago. Since then, Ethiopian farmers have continued to utilize their ancient system of production despite changing ecological and population pressures, feeding, if with difficulty, Ethiopia’s growing population into the 21st century with their generationally acquired wisdom and skills.
Cognizant of the fact the sector in the country has been run though a primitive system, and has to be transformed, the Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) recently announced that it has been expanding multiple digital initiatives including e-voucher as a means to transform the agricultural sector. ATI and United Nations Capital Development Fund held a discussion which was predominantly aiming at enhancing digital agricultural financing to small holder farmers across rural areas.
During the discussion, ATI Deputy General Director, Firew Tegegne (PhD) said that the institute is providing support to Ministry of Agriculture and engaging in the digital expansion in the sector. The Agricultural transformation is contingent on organizational, social and technological adaptation, commitments to modernization and improvements in the living conditions of the farming population.
As to him, there are considerable differences in the initial conditions and the global economic environment in which today’s agriculture based economies find themselves in that the process of structural transformation is likely to be different in the future.
Yes, he said the new opportunities may create an environment that is more conducive to a rural centered agricultural transformation, with, for example, new agricultural value-added products and services closer to farms allowing households to generate incomes through non-farm activities, often enabled by information and communication technologies and other technical advances.
Honestly speaking, the holy-grail of agricultural transformation is to be found in institutional changes that will facilitate and capture economies of scale in the provision of services such as mechanization, delivery of inputs, financial services, and transmission of skills and know-how to the farming population. It should also be noted that the increased competition for export-based markets, a major element in the Asian structural transformation experience, is largely inapplicable for Ethiopia, due to the paucity of technological openings, lack of financial services, and limitations of talents and skills.
As to Firew, sustaining agricultural transformation has to look to important policymaking and programming activities including provision of a quantifiable vision and strategy for agricultural transformation, sustained and verifiable inter-generational commitments over an extended period of time, and sustained resource allocation to the rural and agricultural development. Besides, it has to be accompanied with a carefully balanced prioritization of agricultural and rural transformation with other sectors of the economy including manufacturing, services, urbanization and infrastructural expansion.
Transforming the agriculture sector is not a unidirectional process as it requires a multitude of intertwined systems and processes. This must cover policies, investment, and an enabling environment focusing on the removal of organizational and legal constraints for all sectors. It must facilitate and ease a greater use of agricultural input supplies, increased land and labor productivity, the use of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and irrigation, as well as the expansion of manufacturing and service industries, all of which will result in structural transformation.
Truly speaking, in Ethiopia, no sector can be transformed in isolation. The relative shift of the ratio between agriculture, manufacturing and services should not be used as a tool for resource-allocation decisions nor should it be relevant as an indicator of transformation.
Combined with the expansion in the area of land usage arising from population increases and utilization of agricultural inputs, this has led to increased quantitative crop production at an aggregate national level. This has in turn provided a temporary respite to poverty and hunger, but in spite of crop productivity gains, the organizational, structural and technological constraints have to be well addressed. Agricultural and rural transformation has not been taking place at the scale and speed they ought to be in Ethiopia.
In clear terms, rural transformation means creation of an ecosystem in which the transformation of agriculture takes place, improved human wellbeing is provided, environmental protection is ensured, changes in the mindset of the population commence, rural services are provided, conditions of life for the rural population significantly improved with resulting market participation, and the availability of a large proportion of home consumed commodities, he opined.
Smallholder and new entrant private sector elements, can participate in the production of national priority consumption crops, oilseeds, cotton, and pulse crops. As incomes increase and wealth is created, farmers and private sector investors will acquire the necessary financial means to invest in long-term measures including mechanization, irrigation, aforestation and other directly or indirectly related activities.
Digitalizing agricultural and rural finance is one of the key pillars for agricultural transformation, indeed he said. ATI’s mandate in this regard is providing digital advisory service for farmers and other users of agricultural extension service. It has been conducting online surveys to detect crop and animal diseases and provided early warnings.
Moreover, enabling National Market Information System (NMIS) is another initiative of the institute. Collecting and disseminating market information, activating, e-Voucher System that helps to make efficient input distribution, rural saving and credit cooperatives support and improving access to finance, are also some initiatives under implementation, according to him.
“We will delve into the critical role of farmer profiling in ensuring digital solutions to address the specific needs of our diverse farming communities and explore digital identification systems as a key to empowering farmers and unlocking access to vital services in the future, we will engage in a rich learning exchange, drawing inspiration from successful digital Agricultural initiatives across markets and sectors. By fostering collaboration between government, private sector and farmers themselves, the country can definitely unlock the immense potential of digital Agriculture,” he remarked.
Agricultural and rural transformation is expressed here as the process of changing from a highly fragmented, risk and crisis laden production system, rain-dependent, relying on traditional tools, with substandard conditions of life to the one which is vibrant, wealth-creating, modern, system devoted to the improved wellbeing of the population, capable of producing for markets and supplying surplus for national demands for consumption, manufacturing and export earnings, by fully employing modern agricultural inputs, environmentally sustainable practices, and adopting farm machineries commensurate with the 21st century’s technological and digital innovations. Implicit in agricultural and rural transformation is the desire and the necessity to improve human condition in all its forms and at all times, he underscored.
A paper revolving entitled, ‘National Policy on Fostering Productive Capacities in Ethiopia for Industrialization, Export Diversification and Inclusive Growth: the Role of Agriculture in Kick starting Economic Diversification and Structural Transformation in Ethiopia,’ was also presented as the discussion forum and a range of ideas were discussed.
Two forces drive agricultural transformation: rising labor productivity increases production beyond subsistence and improved infrastructure, especially roads, increase the availability and decreases the cost of a wide range of attractive manufactured consumer goods as well as increasing profitability of new technology.
The most widely accepted characterization of agricultural transformation is one that describes the shift from highly diversified, subsistence-oriented farms towards more specialized production, and market supply.
The hunger and poverty reduction objectives are important for developing countries such as Ethiopia; but they should not be the ultimate goal of agricultural transformation. This must be modernizing the agricultural sector for the long-term, and improving the rural living conditions of the population, thereby reducing poverty and hunger.
In general, as important, in the short and medium term, is the fact that most growth opportunities will continue to come from agriculture: food production, employment in agriculture and allied sub-sectors, food manufacturing, food services, and agriculture based trade. These can and will make significant contributions to the agricultural transformation thereby helping the nation make a difference.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 10 MAY 2024
