Mereja.Forum

Ethiopia's quest to achieve food sufficiency spells a terrible news for donor nations that, for the last 70 years, have successfully made the country their "Aid Darling"-- the watered down version of the derogatory phrase "poster child for famine" -- to give international donors the power to decide who in Ethiopia eats and who dies at their whim. As the saying goes: “If you give them the power to feed you, you're also giving them the power to starve you."

“With support from the African Development Bank's agricultural Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation Program, Ethiopia has not imported grain in 2022,” said Akinwumi Adesina, African Development Bank President, in a speech he made during a meeting with G7 development ministers on June 9, 2022.

Confirming that wheat production is producing good results in Ethiopia, Mandefro Nigussie (Ph.D.), the State Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture said: “The efforts to replace imported wheat with domestic production have shown great results. Ethiopia is working to accelerate its productivity for self-sufficiency while targeting import substitution ahead.”

Leaving aside the question as to why food-aid started flowing into Ethiopia in 1952 (wink wink), its sharp increase during the period of TPLF's rule indicates that extricating Ethiopia from aid dependency will be a painful task, if not impossible. International Aid Agencies won't take it lying down when their billion dollar enterprise comes under threat by food-sufficiency endeavors in Africa. Misinformation has become their weapon of choice to demonize Africans breaking the cycle of aid dependency, a small price to pay for economic freedom, human dignity and self-respect.

Ethiopian wheat value chain: What Nigeria can learn

By Dr Tiberio Chiari

Nigeria can look to Ethiopia, the leading wheat-producing country in Africa and the second-most populous country on the continent, to learn what works and what may not work in the development of a robust wheat value chain.

Having worked in a managing role in the Ethiopian wheat value chain for some time now, I quite understand the terrain. I also strongly believe that Nigeria can adopt a series of measures to improve its wheat production and to reduce its import level.

The government keeps working harder to ensure the country’s current dependence on wheat importation (of about 1.7 million tons) is fully nullified. After years of field experimentation, in 2021, the Ethiopian government launched a new plan it tagged “Irrigation-based Wheat Production: A transformation from Import to Export”.

The objective of the plan is to cut down the import of wheat by producing during the cold season in pastoral dry areas currently available in the Awash, Omo and Shebelle river basins. The approach includes the cultivation of 400,000 hectares of land and the deployment of a large-scale commercial farming model to achieve a productivity of 4.4 tons/ha.

The financial burden for wheat import is particularly high for the Ethiopian treasury and its hard currency reserves. Therefore, massive wheat imports are emergency strategies for preventing social suffering and possible civil disorders.

https://dailytrust.com/ethiopian-wheat- ... can-learn/