Written by Melaku Sahlu - Horizon Ethiopia Staff Writer
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day in 2008,
international news cycles were full of stories about Ethiopia’s new, miraculous
export growth sector – cut flowers. The
story seemed as romantic as the special day that was just around the corner – a
country known more for its chronic food security problems was trying to climb
out of the throes of poverty riding on the fortune of its booming floriculture
exports. A sector which only 6 or 7
years ago could have effectively been termed nonexistent.
A Picture of
Contrasts
Indeed one of the Valentine stories went so far as to
make a direct comparison between the circumstances surrounding the famine of
1985 with Ethiopia’s fast growing economy of which cut flowers represent one of
the upcoming sectors to be sure. But
Ethiopia’s agricultural sector overall can hardly said to be ‘smelling
roses’. Another example of the hype is
found in the oft repeated statement, “Ethiopia could be the bread basket of
Africa!” But for a lot of Ethiopians,
such a statement is now more a reminder of a failure to capitalize rather than
a promise of future possibility.
So perhaps some of the very first questions that must
be answered about Ethiopian agriculture should be; Why is there so much hype? And if it’s deserved, why the gap between it
and the reality of chronic food insecurity which this country has endured for
the better part of half a century?
Natural
Treasures
Shoots ready for transplantation at Genesis Farms in Debre Zeit
The hype is all about the wealth of agro-friendly
riches that Ethiopia is uniquely endowed with.
Chief amongst these is the remarkable biodiversity that can be found
here driven by varied climatic zones, elevations, moisture levels and soil
types. Also of critical importance is a
diverse system of lakes, rivers and underground water that could be harnessed
for the development of this sector.
In the early 20th century, Russian
scientist Nikolai Vavilov declared
Ethiopia one of the eight Centers of Plant Origin and Diversity in the
world. Underpinning his theories was the
varietal development of many plant species in Ethiopia and the large number of
them that are endemic to the area.
Ethiopians get no end of pleasure from claiming that coffee was first
found here but the same is true for teff
(an indigenous grain that is currently receiving increasing worldwide
attention) and hundreds of other plant species.
A recent project in the Somali region of Ethiopia has in just a short
time, discovered over 400 new species of flowering plants in Ethiopia
indicating that significant parts of the country’s natural endowments may yet
be undiscovered.
A Nation of
Farmers
Despite the dramatic growth of urban areas and new
industry throughout the country, agriculture remains a dominant force in
Ethiopia. Over 80% of the workforce is
engaged in it and the sector accounts for almost 60% of GDP as well as 90% of
exports. So it should come as no surprise that it is agriculture that has
buttressed much of Ethiopia’s economic growth over the past 5 years and is
expected to do so for the foreseeable future.
So given a canvas as rich as
Ethiopia’s natural, agricultural resources represent and a nation that seems
engaged in trying to leverage them, why is the picture so bleak? Some may argue that Ethiopia is finally making
great progress in this area. Be that as
it may, there is one benchmark that any claim of significant success in
Ethiopian agriculture must be placed against and that is the unambiguous
ability to completely eliminate the scourge of food insecurity. Short of that, no broad claim of success can withstand
scrutiny.
Behind The
Unmet Expectations
Many different factors have conspired to thus far
render the sector a shadow of what it could be.
Some point to the relatively short period that Ethiopia has had to
really focus on major development issues given its history of conflict and
political turmoil in the previous century.
In recent times, the curious system of land tenure has become a favorite
scapegoat for others. But although it is
certainly not an optimal system, as far as most potential investors are
concerned the relevance of outright ownership versus an 80 year lease for a
plot of land, is probably not a pressing issue.
To gain some understanding of the problem we have to
examine the primary types of farming practiced in Ethiopia and that invariably
leads us to the door of the smallholder.
That the sector is dominated by smallholders employing rudimentary
farming practices hearkening back centuries ago in a country with limited
infrastructure and educational development, no doubt plays a central role in
its problems. Subsistence farming using
ploughshares and oxen are the tenets of their existence and practices such as
crop rotation mean little to them. These
are the reasons why a
A smallholder farm in Butajira
smallholder’s output can be as little as one fifth the
output a commercial farm could produce on the same unit of land. Despite massive capacity building efforts by the
government and various development organizations trying to remedy this problem
through education, the provision of fertilizer, improved seed varieties and the
like, not enough progress has been made.
This may be partly due to the fact that some of the more fundamental
needs such as irrigation systems and light mechanization are not so easy to
address. Finally, many small farmers
tend to have an inordinate focus on subsistence crops rather than a mix of
cereal, cash and commodity crops that can more effectively help to move them
beyond subsistence and also improve their livelihood significantly.
Policies and development work have also applied far
too much focus on smallholder oriented approaches. While there is no doubt that helping
smallholders do better is an inherently beneficial tactic for the longer run,
this assistance has come at the expense of neglecting to provide anywhere near
the same level of support for commercial farming. It is this type of farming that can leverage
the power of private sector investment to make quick and dramatic gains on
agricultural productivity. One need only
look at Ethiopia’s burgeoning floriculture sector for positive proof of what a
galvanized private sector can do.
Finally, underdeveloped infrastructure has acted as a
tremendous hindrance to cultivating some 23 million hectares of arable land
that Ethiopia is estimated to have. Only
3% of this is currently being used productively and without the roads to access
many areas of the country, it has been prohibitively difficult to develop
fertile lands for maximum gain.
Budding
Flowers A Harbinger of Hope
Not everyone is a fan of the floriculture boom in
Ethiopia but there is no denying that at the very least it has demonstrated the
sheer scale of movement that can be achieved given conducive policies, private
sector engagement and market driven development. The same formula is now driving
an increasing amount and variety of fruits and vegetables headed for the Middle
East and Europe including strawberries, apples, asparagus, mangos and
pineapples.
The rapid deployment of new roads and other
infrastructure development is spurring new investment in areas that were
thought to be too remote just a few years ago.
The Gambella, Southern Peoples and Beneshangul regions may see
particular development due to these changes.
A tractor makes its way across a commercial farm near Awassa
New investment – at least initially –seems to be of
foreign provenance although the Ethiopian private sector has lately begun
paying increasing attention to the sector. But one of the more controversial
trends in investment involves much larger ventures sometimes backed by
countries such as Saudi Arabia in which enormous tracts of land are granted to
investors whose intent is to generally export what they grow back to their home
countries. Commentators are up in arms
about such moves pointing out that land is being given away by the government
while food insecurity is still a persistent threat. This is one view, but as usual the situation
is a bit more nuanced. After all, there are over millions of hectares of
uncultivated, arable land in Ethiopia which neither smallholders nor local investors
have shown the requisite capacity to develop.
While the prospect of large investors looking to ship agro products out
of the country may not be very palatable, it is surely better than to leave
wide expanses of land completely unused.
Another growing trend that has also skirted
controversy is the expanding number of biofuel ventures that have also eaten up
large tracts of land in various parts of the country. Since 2005, the Ethiopian government has had
an energy strategy which expressly stipulates the desire to dramatically
increase the production and availability of biofuel. Once again, critics have slammed this
approach within the context of what they contend should be an unwavering focus
on food security. This debate hasn’t
been all about Ethiopia either but simply a crystallization of the worldwide
debate on food versus biofuel in its most simplistic terms. The Ethiopian government’s biofuel strategy
is in fact based primarily on jatropha – a plant which can provide effective
yield even when grown in arid climates.
A policy review in 2008 recommended that land suitable for growing food
crops was not to be used for biofuel plants although its real impact on the
ground is a bit unclear at the moment.
Floriculture is certainly not the answer to Ethiopia’s
agricultural woes. But it does provide
at least a reason for hope if not an exact blueprint to leveraging private
sector involvement in agriculture for sizable gains in productivity. But caution is in order and the framework in
which they engage should disregard neither smallholders nor sustainability in
order to ensure lasting success.
Looking Ahead
A farmer takes his crop to a nearby market
Despite growing signs for hope, it is a simple fact that over 8 million Ethiopians remain chronically food insecure every year. If all of the new reasons for hope from our agriculture sector are to be any different than those which came before them, then dramatic, unambiguous progress must be made against this all important barometer. But several important steps should be taken soon to ensure such an outcome. More focus and support must be provided to commercial agriculture, preferably of the homegrown kind. But supporting commercial farming does not have to come at the expense of smallholders. In fact, an integrated model in which smallholders supplement commercial farms as outgrowers while benefiting from mechanized techniques, improved seed varieties and fertilizer, could offer the best hopes for improving the livelihoods of the smallholders while significantly impacting agricultural yield across the board. Large scale, mechanized farming is almost certainly the quickest answer for producing more of the grains (such as teff, wheat and maize) that are a staple of our diets. And while it is probably unavoidable for the moment that the lion’s share of these investments will be made by foreign entities, a mandate that they hold back some percentage of their production for the local market in exchange for the massive tracts of land awarded to them, is not unreasonable.
Looking at an even broader picture, Ethiopia stands to reap substantial rewards from finally being able to capitalize on all the God given agricultural potential found within this nation’s borders. In 2008, for the first time in recent memory, the world saw widespread riots at the ever increasing global prices of food commodities. This is a simple function of the fact that while the world’s population has increased by 50% in just 25 years, the increase in food production is nowhere near that level. If similar crises are to be aborted before they spread, then Ethiopia and other countries with similar agricultural production potential must step up to the challenge and in doing so, make progress in their efforts to eliminate food security and spur development.
Some images courtesy of Noah Kebede, IPMS Ethiopia.
For more information on agriculture in Ethiopia, visit www.eap.gov.et .
