End Food Dependency in Africa

African nations have been plagued in the decades following successful liberation from colonialism, by having to spend billions of dollars to import food to feed their people. In recent years Africa nations have imported over $40 billion of food annually. A criminal waste of their precious foreign exchange. There is no objective reason today that African nations cannot produce enough food to feed their people.

Many African nations had achieved or were approaching food self-sufficiency; the ability to grow enough food to feed their population, in the 1960s and 1970s. Due to neo-liberal economic policies of the West, such as the ill-fated Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), along with unfair terms of trade, African nations became poorer, and less able to feed their own people, even though they possess plentiful water and abundant fertile soil.

Ethiopia, along with other nations on the African continent is making important strides to reverse this destructive decades long practice. With all the challenges Ethiopia is facing, it has demonstrated a real commitment to upgrade its agricultural sector and end the importation of food. This became obvious to me, during my two weeks visit to Ethiopia (May 12 -25), when I was able to meet with Minister of Agriculture, Dr Girma Amente Nono, and visited several farms in Oromia region, North Shewa Zone, Kimbibit area.

Food insecurity, along with the absence of electricity, and shortage of manufacturing jobs, is the primary causes of instability in African nations. Ethiopia’s determination to end food dependency is not only important for its own people but could provide an exemplar for other nations.

Ethiopia already achieved self-sufficiency in wheat in 2023. It expects to produce thirty million metric tons (mt) of wheat in 2025, and be able to sell wheat to the market, garnering precious foreign exchange. The government is also working on boosting rice production with the expectation that like wheat, Ethiopia will be self-sufficient in rice.

Ethiopia ends heat imports in 2023

Agriculture is responsible for 32% of Ethiopia’s total GDP, over 65% of its  population depends on farming for their existence. Its agriculture sector is responsible for 79.46% of Ethiopia’s exports. Unfortunately , like many underdeveloped nations in Africa, due to lack of storage and a paucity of infrastructure, 30-40% of some grains like teff, sorghum, and maze rot before they are consumed.

Subsistence farms of 1- 2 hectares comprise 95% of the nation’s agriculture production. Ethiopia has transformed this small scale inefficient farming through the innovation of “cluster farms.” 

There are essentially four elements of Ethiopia’s policy to produce more food for its citizens and become self-sufficient: enlarging the hectares of land under cultivation, increasing the application of irrigation, expanding cluster farming, and intensifying mechanization.

Overview of Ethiopia

With 130 million people, Ethiopia has the second largest population in Africa and is the most populated landlocked nation on the continent.

Land area is 1.3 million kilometers square (kms) or 113 hectares. The estimated potential cultivatable land is seventy-four million hectares. Presently thirty million hectares are under cultivation, with the utilization of irrigation, a total of forty million hectares could be cultivated. Ethiopia is not lacking water with its twelve major river basins.

Ethiopia has the largest livestock in Africa with over seventy million head of cattle and over ninety-five million sheep, and goats.

Ethiopia has the third largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, the largest economy in East Africa, and is considered to have one of the fastest growing economies on the continent. With the completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Ethiopia will have the capacity to generate 9,630 megawatts of electricity, second to South Africa among the sub-Saharan nations, and the sixth largest generation of electricity on the continent.

Below are some highlights of Ethiopia’s progress in the agricultural sector, which is projected to grow 6.% in the next fiscal year.

Coffee Still #1

Ethiopia is the historic home of coffee and the number three exporter in the world. It is Ethiopia’s number one export. In 2024/5 fiscal year, Ethiopia exported 469,000 mt) for $2.65 billion, and coffee was 70% of Ethiopia’s agricultural exports.

Under the direction of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, more than two billion coffee seedlings are to be planted in 2025, as part of the country’s Green-Legacy Initiative. Ethiopians have already planted forty billion trees, a sizable portion of their goal of planting fifty billion seedlings across the nation by then of 2026.

Author examining wheat field with Dr. Legese, Min for Gov’t Communications, (left) and Dr. Birhanu, Former State Min Irrigation Development,(right)

Irrigation Drives Wheat Production

Wheat production is the flagship success story for Ethiopia, which can be emulated by other nations.

Ethiopia used to spend 1.0 billion USD importing wheat. In 2020, Ethiopia launched their five year self-sufficiency wheat initiative. At that time, they produced five million tons of wheat on 1.75 million hectares at a yield of 2.7 mt per hectare, only rain nurtured. Irrigation was the game-changer.

In 2024, Ethiopia planted wheat on 3.6 million hectares, watered by the two rainy seasons, and an additional 3 million hectares utilizing irrigation, for a total of 6.6 million hectares for growing wheat. This yielded a total of twenty-three million mt of wheat. In 2024-2025, wheat production yielded 3.6 mt per hectare, only slightly below the world average for irrigated wheat at 3.8 mt per hectare, relying primarily on oxen to plow their fields. To encourage mechanization the government lifted taxes on all items deployed in farming, for five years.

Dr. Birhanu releasing water to irrigate wheat

According to figures from the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, wheat production has steadily risen over the last six years. It appears that Ethiopia is on target to reach its goal of thirty mt of wheat in 2025 by increasing the area under wheat to 7.7 million hectares in both seasons. Ethiopia ceased importing wheat in 2023. As a result. Ethiopia’s development partners have started buying Ethiopia’s surplus wheat, and more wheat is expected to e sold on the international markets this year, as wheat production is increased.

This level of progress is essential for a nation to develop. As of 2023, Ethiopia was the ninth largest wheat producer of wheat in the world. Not surprisingly, Ethiopia is the top wheat producer in Africa, almost three times the size of Egypt, the next largest producer of wheat on the continent.

Ethiopia is still functioning at modest yields per hectare, ranking forty-sixth on world in productivity. With improvements in yield per hectare, Ethiopia will be able to reach new record levels of wheat production in the years ahead. Attaining food sovereignty is a critical element for Ethiopia to achieve higher levels of economic growth and raising the living standards of its people.

Mechanization of wheat harvesting improves productivity

Cluster Farming

The innovation of cluster farming has dramatically changed the landscape of Ethiopia’s agricultural sector, which is primarily composed of subsistence farmers. Cluster farming can involve as many as two thousand farmers and up to twenty thousand hectares. By combining their farms and working together, subsistence farmers can produce one crop more economically through their collaboration. Collectively they prepare the land, seed it, plough it, and harvest it. This has allowed more efficient application of mechanization, because with a larger area of land being cultivated, the farmers can pool their resources to rent agricultural machinery. There are fifteen million former subsistence farmers participating in farming 11.8 million hectares. Cluster farming has increased productivity by 29%, profitability by 16%, and comprises 70% of wheat production.

Cluster farming and expansion of irrigation have been transformative in Ethiopia’s wheat production.

Wonji Shoa Sugar Factory

During my visit to Ethiopia I had the pleasure of visiting the Wonji Shoa Sugar Factory in the Oromiya region, near the city of Adama. The Wonji is the oldest sugar factory in Ethiopia, beginning production of sugar in 1954. The Shoa Sugar factory, the second oldest, began production eight years later in 1962. Both were shut down and redesigned in 2013, and in July 2014, reopened as the consolidated Wonji Shoa Sugar factory, which is still refining sugar cane today.

The Wonji Shoa Sugar Factory in Ethiopia has a daily crushing capacity of 6,250 tons of sugarcane, producing around 174,946 tons of crushed sugar. The factory has plans to further expand its capacity, potentially reaching a crushing capacity of 12,500 mt of cane per day and producing 220,700 mt of sugar annually. The Wonji Shoa Sugar Factory comprises 16,000 hectares, with 7,000 hectares owned by out-grower farmer associations, and 9,000 hectares owned by the Ethiopian Industry Sugar Group (ESIG). The factory also provides essential social infrastructure like schools, health stations, and potable water centers.

Woji Shoa uses several above ground center pivot irrigation systems, which rotate in a circular motion around a fixed point, sprinkling a swath of crops with water as it moves. It is identical to the systems irrigating America’s farmland.

Author on top of center pivot sprinkler for irrigation

Woji Shoa also generates thirty-one MW of electricity from bagasse (a byproduct of sugarcane processing) consuming eleven MW for self-sufficiency. 

The Wonji Shoa Sugar plant is in the Awash River Basin. The Awash River uniquely remains completely inside Ethiopia. This 1,200 kms river is responsible for the Awash Valley Basin. Emperor Haile Selassie in 1962, recognizing the potential of the Awash Valley for agricultural and industrial development, designed a public autonomous authority, the Awash Valley Authority (AVA). Probably, with the success of U.S. President Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in mind, the emperor gave the AVA the responsibility of administering and legally overseeing all projects within the Awash Valley.

The AVA was the first river basin organization in Ethiopia to be given such comprehensive authority for planning and development of water and other resources. As part of this government led project, like Roosevelt’s TVA, the AVA built schools and a hospital for the people working there. Ethiopia currently has eight operating sugar refineries and an additional five in various stages of operation. Ethiopia’s production of sugar peaked in 2017 to 450,000 mt of crushed sugar. In subsequent years production declined to less than 400,000 mt, and is projected to produce 360,000 mt for 2024-2025. However, domestic demand for sugar is approximately 650,000 mt. The ESIG has plans to increase sugar production to 1.3 million mt in the next five years, which would allow Ethiopia to become self-sufficient in sugar, and produce a surplus for export.

Similar to the progress in wheat production, Ethiopia’s application of large-scale irrigation is expected to increase productivity.