In developing countries, food systems are mainly characterized by unorganized, traditional supply chains, and limited market infrastructure. Bulk quantity of the harvested produce is lost every year because of the absence of proper postharvest handling and management practices. The current study was conducted to estimate and identify the major causes for postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables in Debre Markos, north-western Ethiopia. Forty respondents who were retailing fruits and vegetables were randomly selected and qualitative and quantitative data were collected by using direct market observation and semistructured questioners. The result of the present study revealed significant differences between sociodemographic factors, handling practices, and postharvest loss. Educational status, selling experience, and packaging material have a significant relationship with postharvest loss. A significant difference was obtained among the transportation methods used, the selling place, storage methods, and materials. The result also indicated that fewer than 20 percent of respondents practiced selling fruits and vegetables in the resident mini shop. The majority of damaged produce was sold at a discount price. Retailers do not have formal knowledge of postharvest handling practices. The average postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables were estimated to be five to eighty-three percent of the market share. Mainly, during retailing, rotting, mechanical damage, poor handling, improper management of temperature and relative humidity, and hygiene problems during handling are among the major causes of postharvest losses. To reduce the high postharvest loss and supply quality products for consumers throughout the year, intervention activities such as the construction of permanent selling place for perishables, practicing various evaporative cooling technologies, outset training, awareness creation, and infrastructures should be effectively and urgently addressed.
Background Teff is a warm-season cereal crop and the tiniest grain on the planet. It is one of the underutilized crops that can contribute to food security and crop diversification. It is nutritious and well adapted to the growing conditions in Ethiopia, but little has been invested to expand its potential to the domestic or international markets. Method Comprehensive empirical review was carried out emphasizing the spatial, temporal production dynamics of teff in Ethiopia and its economic value. Different inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and filtered pertinent to this study in country-wide verdicts. Results Ethiopia is not only the biggest teff-producing nation but also the only nation to have adopted teff as a staple crop. Teff contains a high nutritive value and has unique dietary benefits due to its being gluten-free and is typically preferred by health-conscious consumers. However, teff producing and value addition practice is insufficient and generally depends on conventional practices, and its marketplace is restricted local and the government imposes an export ban on it to limit the upward pressure on domestic grain prices and address local food security. Instead, other countries, such as USA, are increasingly participating in the teff market and teff has a great contribution for foreign earning through Injera. Because of its appealing nutritional and functional features, the crop’s popularity is fast growing over the world. Several health advantages have been associated with the grain, these conditions necessitate extensive investigation on the grain’s nutritional and functional qualities. Conclusion This study examines the use dynamics and economics of teff in Ethiopia. Teff has received restricted consideration from the global market and mainstream researches perhaps due to its orphan crop’ status. To take comparative advantage of the growing domestic and international demand of teff, intensive investment by the domestic teff industry needs to improve methods of teff producing, opening up and expanding its international market to ensuring its super global food and part of the solution to worldwide food and nutrition security gains. Ethiopia should improve to take the lead in the growing teff market and support others to engage in teff food system part.
Medicinal plants play important roles in human and animals disease treatment. 1000 medicinal plant species are identified and reported in the Ethiopian Flora. They contribute and is more preferable for new drug development. Ethiopia has the potential to become an important source country, given the diversity of plants and the rich traditional knowledge regarding their use. The main sources of medicinal plants for utilizers are the wild forests. There is also cultivation practice of medicinal plants in home garden. About 80% of human and 90% of livestock population in Ethiopia depends on utilization of medicinal plants for primary health care. The knowledge transfer of medicinal plants in Ethiopia is largely oral. Most parts of medicinal plants commonly used are leaves and roots. Utilization of leaves for drug preparation is important for conservation of medicinal plants since harvesting leaves may not cause detrimental effect on the plants compared to the root or whole plant collections. Medicinal plants play a crucial role in health care needs in Ethiopia, because modern health care do not have adequate and equitable health service. Moreover, they depend on medicinal plants due to financial limitations related to rapid population growth and poor economic performance. In Ethiopia the market for essential oils of medicinal plants is very high and increasing in alarming rate. In the year 2011, 1,596.5 tons of essential oils of medicinal plants was imported and more than 30 million USD spent. Through increasing production potential and modernizing the sector of medicinal plants, they play a great role to substitute import and export. Medicinal plants have great potential to contribute to economic development and poverty alleviation in Ethiopia. Environmental degradation, deforestation, agricultural expansion over exploitation and population growth is the principal threats to medicinal plants in Ethiopia.
Background Agriculture is a key to Africa’s future. With alarming population growth, the quest for land increases not only for farming, but also for housing, and the building of industries. Likewise, Ethiopian highlands, cultivated landholding sizes are very small and the land-to-man ratio is declining over time. This exposes the young rural population to facing severe land constraints, poverty, and food insecurity. In addition, constraints facing rural households are inevitably varied and diverse. Hence, this paper examines an in-depth and systematic review of how the rural economy responds to the existing land constraints and what specifically drives them for income diversification outlooks; accumulative or survival strategies in the spatial and temporal dimensions. Method We have used a systematic review with concept definitions and a qualitative approach that relies on the analysis of current literature and deductive logical reasoning to generate a comprehensive scientific understanding of a topic that can capitalize information for future research and policies. Different inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and filtered pertinent articles to this study in countrywide verdicts. Result The burgeoning literature underscores farm sizes are strongly and positively correlated with net farm income and overall livelihood options, and land constraint leads to rural poverty. One of the pressing issues in rural, as well as urban areas, is that millions of small-scale farmers are becoming landless, and forced as daily laborers for other income sources or joining the already massively overloaded urban and peri-urban low-productivity services sector. In addition, skill, capital (financial and physical), and multiple constraints coupled with the small land sizes including high unemployment, social tension, migration and crowding out the nearest towns. Further, findings pointed out that rural market failures—particularly in the areas of land and finance—force poorer subpopulations to choose strategies with demonstrably lower returns, while wealthier ones are engaging in higher returns with lower marginal and entry costs of participation. Hence, push-and-pull factors of off-farm and non-farm engagements are the survival strategies and persuade the social welfare of the poor. Conclusion With heterogenous constraints, diversification patterns reflect people's voluntary asset exchanges and asset allocation across diverse activities to attain the best possible balance of projected returns and risk exposure given the restrictions they confront due to missing or incomplete markets for land, credit, or labor. Particular emphasis for the vibrant income diversification strategies should be set in and policymakers must stimulate buoyant rural economies, with robust non-farm and off-farm income and innovative farming practices. Hence, the poor must gain access to the growing market niches and basic infrastructure development. Smooth and unconstrained labor markets provide one important bridge linking the rural poor to growing non-farm opportunities.
Ethiopia’s oilseed industry makes a major contribution to foreign exchange revenues. Ethiopia’s three main oilseed crops (sesame, soybean, and Niger seed) account for about 20% of the country’s total agricultural export profits, second only to coffee. Even though Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of sesame seeds, the country is facing increasing supply and demand restrictions. This paper begins with an examination of one of the most prominent oil crops in the country. It is a highly adaptable crop that may be used for anything from subsistence to commercial output. We established a comprehensive scientific understanding of the crop using a systematic review of the current literature and deductive logical reasoning that can be used to inform future research and policies. Various exclusion and inclusion criteria were used to filter the most notable findings. Millions of growers and other market participants are employed throughout the oilseed value chain. Reduced sesame productivity, pests and diseases, and limited access to modern technologies are all severe supply-side constraints. On the demand side, traders and market distortion, as well as an artificially higher home price and the ease with which unskilled labor can enter the market, are all factors. Other demand-side constraints include worldwide price volatility, a highly concentrated export market, and intense global competition. Ethiopia’s sesame seed development potential is being severely hampered by these restrictions. If farmers, dealers, and the government do not address these issues strategically, the country may soon lose its competitiveness in the global sesame seed market. This will contribute to Ethiopia’s ongoing discussion about how to better inform private and public sector policies and investments to increase sesame production, transform agriculture, improve nutrition and food systems, and be able to ease supply- and demand-side restrictions. In a nutshell, an increased area under cultivation combined with best agronomic practices could boost sesame production. Farmers, policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders must thus intervene to enhance sesame production. Future studies should concentrate on how to boost sesame output in farmers’ fields while following appropriate sesame production technology and agronomic principles.
Food security is a key issue worldwide and must be considered in both spatial and temporal contexts. Securing the availability of food somewhere in a country does not ensure food security in other areas. Similarly, securing food available today does not guarantee its availability tomorrow. Therefore, parameters such as rapid population growth, urbanization, changing consumption patterns, and globalization, as well as climate change and depletion of natural resources, must be kept in mind while planning the issue of food security. In this regard, Enset, which is a large perennial herbaceous crop native to Ethiopia, is highly stapled to approximately 20 million people in the southern, eastern, and central parts of Ethiopia. It is a common practice in the agricultural system of these areas, making these areas Enset belt regions of the country. On the other hand, the remaining parts of the country often do not practice such farming systems despite the fact that there are good opportunities to do so. One way of expanding the experience of Enset culture is through promoting its food system and multiple-use dynamics. Hence, decision-makers and policy designers in the area of agriculture would consider intensifying Enset to its nonbelt areas, to transform agricultural and food systems to end hunger, achieve food security, and improve nutrition.
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