Addis Ababa — Ethiopia’s efforts to boost agricultural productivity, promote self-sufficiency, and engage smallholder farmers offer valuable lessons for other African countries seeking to strengthen food security, according to officials from the African Union (AU) and the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System.
Clement Adjorlolo, Principal Programme Officer for Agriculture and Rural Transformation at the African Union Development Agency (AUDA), told ENA that African countries need to consolidate efforts to transform their food systems and strengthen their capacity to meet growing domestic needs.
In this regard, Ethiopia’s experience carries wider significance as countries across the continent work to build food systems capable of feeding their growing populations, he noted.
“We need to be able to produce and feed ourselves. We cannot continue to delegate our food requirement to anyone else,” Adjorlolo said.
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He stressed the need to address the entire food chain, from production and transportation to consumption, rather than focusing primarily on agricultural production.
Adjorlolo said involving local communities and smallholder farmers in the transformation process is essential to strengthening self-sufficiency, increasing production and reducing dependence on food imports.
“Some of the initiatives that Ethiopia is carrying on, bringing smallholder farmers and aggregating them to produce, to be involved in production, is the example that we need to share with other member states,” he said.
He noted that Ethiopia’s experience in wheat production also demonstrates the importance of strengthening domestic agricultural production as African countries seek to meet a greater share of their food requirements from within the continent.
The official further highlighted Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative as an example of efforts to link agricultural and food systems transformation with environmental restoration and climate resilience.
He said tree planting contributes not only to environmental restoration and carbon sequestration, but can also support livelihoods and create economic opportunities for local communities.
“The Green Legacy program, in my view, has been a really, really exemplary initiative that many other African countries are following,” Adjorlolo said.
He added that the initiative contributes to broader continental environmental efforts, including the African Union’s Great Green Wall and the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, known as AFR100.
Meanwhile, Head of the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) unit at AKADEMIYA2063, Paul Guthiga, said Ethiopia’s ongoing agricultural transformation also offers valuable lessons for other countries across the continent.
Guthiga pointed to efforts to strengthen food security, promote value addition and agro industrialization, and increase farmers’ incomes as areas from which other African countries can draw experience.
“I think even looking at the kind of transformation we are observing in Ethiopia, it is quite impressive that within a very short time, we see a lot of initiatives by the government across the country to ensure that all communities have food security,” he said.
He added that promoting value addition and agro-industrialization could create more employment opportunities while increasing farmers’ incomes.
Guthiga also said Ethiopia’s agricultural investment experience provides an important lesson for other African countries, noting that Ethiopia was among the countries that met the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) commitment to allocate at least 10 percent of public expenditure to agriculture.
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CAADP is the African Union’s continental framework for agricultural transformation, food security and sustainable development.
He said Ethiopia’s experience demonstrates the importance of increasing investment in agriculture to accelerate transformation and address food security challenges.
Guthiga further welcomed Ethiopia’s ongoing development of a new National Agrifood Investment Plan aligned with the Kampala CAADP Declaration.
The Kampala CAADP Declaration is one of the continent’s broader efforts to advance agricultural transformation and food security.
He also said that maintaining the momentum could help address outstanding challenges, raise agricultural productivity and improve food security and nutrition across the country.
