This paper looks at the issue of poverty and food shortage in Ethiopia and questions why this continues to be a burgeoning issue when Ethiopia has increased its food production by 70% since the 1980s.
Reasons for poverty and food insecurity in Ethiopia include:
- Vulnerability: subsistence agriculture is vulnerable to shortages of water and poor irrigation. Desperately poor people do not have the capacity to withstand the loss of food and income from crop failure or the death of livestock due to lack of rain;
- Production: deforestation, land and soil degredation and unreliable rain fall affects crop productivity. Limited availability of feed and grazing, unimproved breeding stock, and diseases means diminished milk yields. High population growth has forced farmers onto smaller tracts of land;
- Markets: the inability of markets to efficiently and adequately perform the distribution of food from surplus areas to deficit areas is key to the problem.
Policy recommendations inlcude:
- Food-for-work programmes, crop insurance, and other safety net measures would help to reduce the vulnerability of poor farmers. The government should also invest in systems to better measure and forecast production and weather patterns. They need to improve management of food aid, including the purchase of surplus stocks in good years, in order to cope with weather-related disasters;
- Averting food crises in the future requires increasing the incomes of the vast majority of the population, in part through investing in research and extension to assist farmers in producing a diversity of crops and livestock, including high-value products. Ethiopia is comprised of 18 distinct agro-ecological zones, ranging from mountains to deserts. No one-size fits-all strategy will work in all areas. Research and extension must also be demand driven, providing a menu of options and facilitating local adaptation;
- In order to make markets work for poor and hungry people, Ethiopia must develop ways to disseminate market information, offer financing to small-scale farmers and traders, provide contract enforcement, certify product qualities, and reduce risk. The government and international aid donors must invest in infrastructure: roads, telecommunications networks, and modern storage.
