The challenges and prospects of Ethiopian agriculture

Abstract

In the coming decades, ensuring food security is one of the greatest challenges in Ethiopia. Most Ethiopians practice mixed agricultural activity which represents about 33.88% 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.

Finger Millet Production in Ethiopia: Opportunities, Problem Diagnosis, Key Challenges and Recommendations for Breeding

“…While the ranking of the importance of production constraints varied across the districts, erratic rainfall, a lack of improved varieties, a lack of financial resources to procure inputs, land shortages, a limited supply of seeds of improved varieties, a lack of access to fertilizers and declining soil fertility were the most common challenges affecting finger millet production (Table 5). Erratic rains were also identified as a major production constraint in Kenya [58], Myanmar [59] and Ethiopia [60,61]. A lack of financial resources has been previously identified as the single most crucial socio-economic challenge affecting crop production in most sub-Saharan African countries [62].…”

Future Use Prospects of Legumes through Improvement and the Challenges Faced

“…Where vegetation has not been disturbed or cleared for human benefits, majority of legumes and rhizobia are found in situ in these precious non-arable grounds. These repositories are now currently recognized for their extremely high conservation values particularly in ex situ germplasm centers which are becoming expensive to retain [29]. It is from there in situ natural repositories where many plant legumes and their root nodule bacteria (rhizobia) with unique prospect future roles in the field of agriculture, horticulture products and pharmaceutical medicine will be drawn.…”

Endangered indigenous knowledge: Assessing locally adopted tree conservation practices in Aleta Wondo district, Sidama regional state, Ethiopia

“…However, nowadays, environmental sustainability has not been given due attention. It might be because of the fact that the unprecedented growth of the human population [ 13 ] and its associated consumption is accompanied by advanced technology and competition for domination of the economic world [ 14 ]. This can be, in short, expressed as attempting to bring economic progress at any negative cost to the environment.…”

“…Such striving for economic production has proceeded by being ignorant not only to the sustainability of environmental resources but also to the needs and demands of the future generation [ 15 ]. Consequently, diversified and multifaceted environmental problems such as climate change, land degradation, water pollution, loss of biological diversity and deforestation have been commonly experienced by the global community in varying magnitudes [ 14 ].…”