In the future decades, ensuring food security is one of the greatest challenges in Ethiopia. Most Ethiopians practice mixed agricultural activity which represents about 36.8% of the country`s GDP. Therefore, this paper is devoted to reviewing the existing agricultural challenges and future prospects in the country. Majorly, it focused on the shortage of farmland, climate change, fragmentation and degradation of farmland, unevenly distributed constructions and urbanizations, pests, lack of integration among stakeholders, political instabilities, and its prospects. Despite the numerous challenges, Ethiopia has marvelous opportunities like the commercialization of fruit, vegetable, and ornamental plant productions. The country has also ample opportunity in the areas of animal production that ranks first in Africa in the number of livestock heads. The country has a huge labor force and water resources. It is proximity to Middle East markets is valuable to transport fresh products within a short period of time to the needed destination. However, Ethiopia's current fruit, vegetable, and animal production for export are very limited because of fragmented cultivation and lack of quality. The country has also a great variety of climate and soil types that enables it to grow a diversity of horticultural crops. Therefore, emphasizing agriculture in Ethiopia requires the political as well as the economic commitment of all parties concerned.
The use of fermented plant extracts (FPE) as a top dress in crop production is a natural process that can provide plant nutrients and suppress diseases. However, there is scanty information on the use of plant extracts and the bulky of it is not documented. This study aimed at determining the effectiveness of fermentation in extracting plant nutrients from plant tissues for use as top dress in crop production. Materials from Lantana (Lantana camara, L), stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L) and Tithonia (Tithonia diversifolia, G), common plants that are locally available in most agricultural areas were investigated. A complete randomized design (CRD) was used to set up the experiments in the laboratory. Tender shoots and leaves of these plants were fermented in water and the levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) contained were measured at intervals of 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 days. The concentration of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) yeasts and the pH were also determined at each interval. Standard foliar feeds (Agro-Feed and Power Booster) commonly used by farmers were used as control. The results demonstrated that Lantana and stinging nettle were not significantly different in the percentage of N released. Phosphorous was highest in stinging nettle at 5.26%, Tithonia had 5.12% while Lantana had the lowest at 4.48%. However potassium was highest in Tithonia at 4.38%, stinging nettle had 3.64%, while Lantana had the lowest at 3.63%. There were also high significant differences in concentration of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), Yeast and pH at p < 0.05. The findings of the study showed that nutrients can be extracted from plant materials by fermentation although in less quantities as compared to commercial foliar feeds.
Soybean is an important an oil seed and pulse in Ethiopia. However, the yield of this crop is limited mainly due to shortage of improved varieties suited to specific area. This field experiment was conducted during 2018/2019 cropping season to evaluate soybean varieties for yield production at Omorate and Weyito in South Omo Zone, Southern Ethiopia. The experiment contains five varieties namely Pawe-1, Pawe-2, Belesa, GTX-2644-133 and Nyala. The experiment was conducted using randomized complete block design with three replications. Data were collected on days to maturity, plant height, branch number, pods per plant and grain yield and subjected to analysis of variance using SAS software program. The result of this study revealed that, there was significant difference (p>0.05 or p>0.01) among varieties in all traits. The highest (2248.0 kg ha -1 ) and (2147.9 kg ha -1 ) grain yield were recorded from Parwe-2 and Pawe-1 variety, respectively among tested treatments. Therefore, it can be concluded that variety Pawe-2 or Pawe-1 well performed and can be recommended for the growers in the study area and its vicinity.
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