Ensuring Food Security in Ethiopia

Ensuring Food security in dry land areas
of Ethiopia:
polices, actors, and achievements
International Conference on Policies for Water and Food
Security in Dry Areas
24th to 26th of June, Cairo, Egypt
Dawit Alemu
Ethiopia

Content
1) Overview of Ethiopian Agricultural sector
2) Food security measures in dry land area of
Ethiopia
• Overview of dry land areas in Ethiopia
• Key food security measures in dry land areas
3) Lessons Learned
4) Emerging issues and challenges
5) Main recommendations to policy-makers
InternationalConferenceonPoliciesforWaterandFoodSecurityinDryAreas–
24-26June,Cairo,Egypt
2

Overview of the Ethiopian agricultural sector
• Being the dominant sector, agriculture in Ethiopia contributes about
50% to overall GDP, generates 90% of export earnings and supplies
about 70% of the country’s raw material to the secondary activities
• The production system is dominantly rain-fed with three major
farming systems: (i) Cereal based mixed farming system, (ii) Cash
crops based mixed farming system, and (iii) Pastoral and agro-
pastoral farming systems
• Thirteen million smallholder farming households account for 90
percent of total production ,
• Dry land areas cover about 68% of the total land with an estimated
population of about 35% of the country’s population, i.e. not less
than 30 million people
• On average, five to seven million people are chronically food
insecure every year
3

• Taking into consider the extent of food insecurity in the
country, the priority policy focus has been to Agriculture
• Specifically, Agriculture has been at the core of the GoE’s
poverty reduction strategic documents:
• The Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction
Program (SDPRP) approved in 2002,
• The 2004 Food Security Strategy (FSS),
• The 2006 Plan for Accelerated and Sustained
Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), and
• The 2010 Growth and Transformation Plan – GTP
4

• The national water policy and strategy provides the
framework of addressing water supply and
sanitation, irrigation and hydropower development in the
country
• The food security strategy sets the scope and areas of
intervention in helping chronically food insecure households
to reach a level of food security necessary for an active and
healthy life
• These policies are implemented in a decentralized governance
and the key organizational structure includes
federal , regional, zonal, and district levels
5

Food security measures in
dry land area of Ethiopia
6

Overviewof dry land areas in Ethiopia
• There are 18 major agro-
ecological zones (AEZs), of which
8 are dry AEZs that are arid, semi-
arid and dry sub-humid regions;
• Dry land areas cover about 68%
of the total land in the country;
• About 35% of the country’s
population, i.e. not less than 30
million people;
• These areas support 28 percent
of cattle, 66 percent of goats, 26
percent of sheep, and almost all
camel population
7

Overviewof dry land areas …
• The main features of these dry land areas are rainfall is
scarce, unreliable and concentrated during a short rainy
season with the remaining period tending to be relatively
or absolutely dry which adversely affects crop growth
and development.
• Almost all food insecure households are found in the dry
land areas of the country
• The areas that were affected during the mega drought
periods in the country are all dry land areas
8

Overviewof dry land areas …
Mega disaster
period
Human
lives lost
Affected areas
No of affected
people
1972-1974/75 100,000 Wello, North Shoa, Tigray, Afar,
Kangra provinces
3,000,000
1983/84 300,000 Wollo, Gondar, Tigray, Shoa,
Harerghe, Sidamo
7,750,000
1987 367 Ogaden, Tigray, Wello, Shewa,
Gamo Gofa, Sidamo, Gondar,
and Bale
7,000,000
1999/00 0 North Wello, East Hararge
zones, South Oromiya
4,900,000
2003/04 0 Tigray, Oromiya, Amhara,
Somali, Afar regions
13,200,000
2005/06 0 Afder, Liben, Gode zones,
Somali region, Borena zone,
Oromiya region
2,600,000
9
Mega drought periods by affected areas

Key foodsecuritymeasures in dry land
areas
10
• The key interventions to ensure food secuirty in dry land areas can
be categorized in five:
1) Strengthening Agricultural Research for Dry land Areas
2) Agricultural extension (crop, livestock and natural resources)
3) Natural resource, water management and irrigation
4) Commercialization and Agricultural marketing for both inputs
and outputs
5) Food security specific interventions in dry land areas

StrengtheningAgriculturalResearch for
Dryland Areas
• There are six federal agricultural research centers and 16
regional agricultural/pastoral research centers in the dry land
areas of the country.
• The key research priority areas are
• drought tolerance,
• heat tolerance
• disease and pest management
• soil and water management including irrigation agronomy
• farm mechanization,
• socioeconomics and research-extension.
11

StrengtheningAgricultural Research …
12

Agriculturalextensionin dry land areas
• The main contents of the extension programs in the dry
land areas are related to:
• Water and natural resource rehabilitation and
conservation, and
• Livestock management in pastoral areas
• The extension program for dry land areas differentiates
the interventions for:
• Drought-prone and moisture stress areas and
• Pastoral areas
13

Agriculturalextension …
14
No Region
No of
Kebeles
Constructed
FTC
FTCs
with
require
facilities
FTCs that
are
proving
training
FTCs
with
demo
sites
FTCs to be
constructed
No of
DAs
1. Tigray 683 629 183 187 182 2342
2. Amhara 3196 2627 1682 207 1935 489 9172
3. Oromiya 6447 4164 3030 1529 19120
4. SNNPR 3760 2556 1614 1080 2828 273 11532
5. BG 474 219 100 127 50 1748
6. Gambella 229 41 32 22 44 1540
7. Afar 339 51 16 11 20 748
8. Somali -- 113 12 1269
9. Harari 17 6 5 5 6 35
10. Dire
Dawa
38 12 5 12 12 120
11. Addis
Ababa
56
Ethiopia 10,418 6,679 3,180 5,077 762 47,682

Naturalresource, water management and
irrigation
15
• the country is one of the Sub-Saharan African countries most seriously
affected by land degradation
• highly associated with soil, vegetation, biodiversity, water, climate
degradation, and land conversion
• About 85% of the country’s land surface is considered prone to
moderate, to very severe for land degradation
• Accordingly,
• 30,000 ha are lost annually due to water erosion, with over 2 million ha
already severely damaged;
• 1.5 billion tons of topsoil is lost each year from soil erosion;
• Annual soil nutrient losses are equivalent to 30 kg/ha of Nitrogen and 15-20
kg/ha of Phosphorus;
• 4,000 ha of irrigated land has been lost due to severe salinization; and
• 62,000 ha of forest and woodland are cleared annually.

Naturalresource,watermanagementandirrigation…
16
• In response to these challenges, the country has developed a
Strategic Investment Framework for Sustainable Land
Management – SIFSLM
• Planned to be implemented in three phases, over a fifteen
year period
• phase 1: 2009 – 2013,
• Phase 2: 2014 – 2018, and
• Phase 3: 2019 – 2023
• The main interventions are related to community-based
watershed management and participatory development of
water resources for irrigation and/or fisheries

Naturalresource,watermanagementandirrigation…
17
Region Total Vegetable Cereals Spices Pulses Fruits
No of
beneficiaries
Oromiya 568,475 288,951 54,097 180,470 30,938 14,019 1,193,023
Amhara 528,182 287,124 129,250 28,382 7,201 76,225 1,642,880
Tigray 181,769 91,837 27,493 5,238 33,418 23,782 462,608
SNNPR 125,244 50,626 13,784 35,824 20,175 4,836 728,210
1,403,670 718,538 224,624 249,915 91,732 118,862 4,026,721
Target areas 2010/11 2011/12
National water supply coverage 52.12 58.25
Rural water supply coverage 48.85 55.21
Urban water supply coverage 74.64 78.71
Reducing non-functional water supply schemes 25.5 24
Cultivated Area under small-scale irrigation in ha, 2011/12
Access to Potable water supply in percentage
19,289 watersheds reclaimed and rehabilitated through Integrated
watershed interventions

Commercializationand Agricultural
marketing
18
• This is highly linked with national extension system along with the
development of national agricultural marketing system
• The key areas of investment in the agricultural marketing that are
linked with improved commercialization of farmers are
• Improved access to road especially through the huge expansion of
rural roads,
• Improved access to telecommunication services,
• Improved warehousing,
• Development of market centres like ECX for major commodities, and
rural market centres for livestock, grains and coffee all over the
country, and
• Improved rural electrification

CommercializationandAgricultural marketing …
19
• In terms of improving access to road, the federal and regional
total road length has increased from 53,143 in 2010/11 to
56,190 in 2011/12
• In terms of access to telecommunication services, the
coverage of wireless telephone service increased to 90
percent in 2011/12. This is highly associated with access to
market information that a key input for market efficiency
• Access to electricity is considered an important factor for and
the national electric service coverage has reached at 48.5 per
cent in 2011/12. The GTP target is to increase the national
electricity service coverage to 75 percent by 2015.

Foodsecurityspecificinterventions
20
• Food security specific programs are put in place in areas were there
is severe food security problem
• The main programs are:
• Agricultural Growth Programme (AGP);
• Sustainable Land Management Programme (SLMP);
• Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP);
• Households' Asset Building Programme (HAB);
• Disaster Risk Management and Food Security Program (DRMFS).
• Settlement program
• This is also a move recently to add a national program on livestock
and pastoral livelihood to ensure a more focused intervention

Foodsecurityspecific interventions…
21
• This programs have been instrumental to ensuring food security in drought
prone areas and improving resilience through long term investments in natural
resource reclamation
• These programs have considerably contributed in major food insecure areas in
terms of:
• reducing household food insecurity;
• raising consumption levels;
• encouraging households to engage in production and investment through
enhanced access to credit,
• increasing use of modern farming techniques, and
• entry into nonfarm own business activities;
• leading to sustained asset accumulation, and
• No loss of human lives

Lessons Learned
• The key lessons are related with:
• The need to promote integrated approach at
• National level
• Community level, and
• Household level
• Addressing the priority problem – Land and natural resource
degradation, which is the main cause of water and food
insecurity in the country
22

Lessons Learned …
• The need to promote integrated approach at all levels
23
Agricultural Research
Agricultural Extension
Natural resource, water
management and irrigation
Commercialization and
agricultural Marketing
Food security specific
programs
RuralInfrastructure
Non-agriculturalruraldevelopment
activities
Improvedgovernanceforrural
development
Agro-ecologybasedrural
development
Integrated Rural Development

Lessons Learned
• The need to promote integrated interventions at community
level in dry land areas (Watershed approach)
24
1
2
3
4

Lessons Learned
• The need to promote integrated interventions at household
level in dry land areas
25

Emerging issues and challenges
• The key challenges for improved performance are related to
• The continuous challenges of the effects of climate change
(drought, flood, disease and pest etc),
• The challenges in establishing effective technology multiplication
and delivery mechanism in dry land areas due to the associated
high risks
• The limited agricultural technology uptake in dry land areas,
• The nature of long period requirement for benefits and the huge
initial cost of reclamation of natural resources, and
• Lack of adequate human power with expertise.
26

Mainrecommendationsto policy-makers
• Further strengthening integrated approach at all levels (national,
regional, community and household levels)
• Strengthening agricultural research in dry land areas (esp water –
crop-livestock integration)
• Improve the agricultural technology delivery mechanisms
• Strengthening the natural resource reclamation and conservation
along with the watershed principle
• Strengthen the human and institutional capacity to address the
challenges of dry land areas
27

Thanks for listening
Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome

Ensuring Food Security in Ethiopia

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