End Food Dependency in Africa! Progress In Ethiopia Agriculture

July 14, 2025July 14, 2025 Lawrence Africa, agriculture, Ethiopia, food, irrigation, mechanization, self-sufficiency, sugar, wheat

July 14, 2025

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.

*The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be officially inaugurated in September*

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.

*Ethiopian coffee earned $2.65 billion in fiscal year 2024/25*

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.

͏Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

Why Has Fighting in Ukraine Led to Food Emergencies in Africa?

May 17, 2022May 17, 2022 Lawrence Africa, agriculture, aid, development, electricity, food, food insecurity, hunger, Infrastructure, irrigation, physical economy, poverty, Ukraine, wheat

A Somalian girl carries her sibling along land left dry by persistent drought.
Getty Image, News24

Lawrence Freeman

May 17, 2022

In recent months there have been an abundance of reports on how the conflict in Ukraine is exacerbating food scarcity in Africa. The argument is that Ukraine, ordinarily a large exporter of wheat, is not shipping food to the rest of the world. This includes African nations, some of which are large importers of Ukrainian wheat, resulting in shortages of food, and higher prices, contributing to Africa’s food insecurity.

Food Crisis Staggering in Africa

According to Global Report on Food Crisis 2022, eight of the countries facing the most severe food shortages are in Africa, affecting over 81 million Africans. The breakdown is:

DRC 25.9 million people, Afghanistan 22.8 million, Nigeria 19.5 million, Yemen 19 million, Ethiopia between 14-15 million, South Sudan 7.7 million, Somalia 6 million, Sudan 6 million, Pakistan 4.7 million, Haiti 4.5 million, Niger 4.4 million and, lastly, Kenya 3.4 million, as reported by News24

These nations have been given an Integrated Phase Classification 3 (IPC3), which is defined as households that have either:

Food consumption gaps that are reflected by high or above-usual acute malnutrition; OR Are marginally able to meet minimum food needs but only by depleting essential livelihood assets or through crisis-coping strategies.

News24 also reports that according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2020, “approximately 323.3 million people in Africa or 29.5% of the population ran out of food or went without eating that year.”

The United Nations-(UN News) reports that “276 million people around the globe were already facing hunger at the beginning of the year. That number could rise by 47 million if the war continues according to the WFP (World Food Pogramme), with the steepest rise in Sub-Saharan Africa.” (emphasis added)

Industrialization to End Hunger

With abundant hect-acres of fertile soil and arable land, coupled with many water systems, African nations should have already achieved food self-sufficiency. Ironically, sadly, most nations are farther away from being able to feed their populations through their own production of food than they were during the 1960 and 1970s.

African nations are undermining their own economies by importing large amounts of food. According to President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, “Africa’s annual food import bill of $35 billion, estimated to rise to $110 billion by 2025, weakens African economies, decimates its agriculture and exports jobs from the continent.”

In reality, Africa’s huge import bill is hindering nations from developing the capacity to eliminate poverty and hunger. Nations using their precious foreign exchange to buy food that they can grow themselves is more than counter-productive. What is needed to end food insecurity is for Africa nations to build their own robust agricultural and manufacturing sectors. There are oligarchical financial interests, steeped in the colonial mind-set, who do not want Africa nations to develop, to become industrialized. There are others, even well-meaning, who believe that African nations should remain agrarian societies. As an expert in physical economics, I can assure you that this approach will fail, and will only lead to more poverty and death.

President George Washington’s brilliant Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, fortunately won the battle against Thomas Jefferson and the slaved based agrarian South, to create a manufacturing industry in the newly established United states. Africa must do the same

With sixty percent of the world’s arable land that remains uncultivated, it is obvious that Africa can significantly increase food production in the short term. However, this does not obviate the need for rapid expansion of industry, beyond those businesses devoted only to the extraction of resources. Instead of spending tens of billions of dollars for imported wheat and rice that can be grown indigenously, that money should be investmented in infrastructure, and on valued-added production.

*David Beasley, the head of the World Food Program, visiting Sanaa, Yemen, September 2018, where the world’s worst hunger crisis continues to unfold. (courtesy WFP/Marco Frattini, September 2018)*

Aid is Insufficient

David Beasley, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday, May 11, that $5 billion is needed to avoid famine and migration due to COVID-19 and the loss of food from Ukraine. He told the Senators, “ If you do not respond now, we will see destabilization, mass starvation, and migration on an unprecedented scale, and at a far greater cost. A massive influx of refugees to Western countries could soon become a reality.”

Morally we are compelled to acquiesce to Beasley’s legitimate request, although it is doubtful that the nations of the advanced sector will actually come up with the money.

How many hundreds of billions of dollars have been expended on providing aid to countries in need? What would be the results if an equivalent amount of money were spent on development. Emergency aid is required to prevent our fellow human beings from perishing. However, emergency aid does not contribute to creating durable economic transformation that would eliminate the conditions that are the cause for food deprivation. Aid does not increase the productive powers of labor; it does not increase the productivity of the economy. While we can do no less than be the Good-Samaritan, what is the tangible long term effect of exclusively delivering aid?

Infrastructure Crucial

Deficits in critical categories of hard infrastructure, especially roads, railroads, and electricity, is depriving nations of precisely those elements of physical economy required to increase the production of real wealth. Why don’t the G7 and European donor nations “grant” an equivalent amount of “aid money” for investment in infrastructure and building nascent industries? Disbursing money either through outright endowments or long-term low interest loans for development has the potential to change the dynamics of poverty and hunger plaguing African nations.

For example, consider irrigation. Bringing water to farmland would substantially increase food production. Most African nations irrigate 5% or less of their land. Worse, many nations still depend on backward modes of subsistence farming. What would be required to double or triple irrigation? Primarily, energy to pump the water is essential, but African nations are energy starved. Pipes to transport the water. Advanced machinery would be required to harvest the increased yields. Roads and railroads would be needed to transport the crops to markets.

Given Africa’s untapped agricultural potential, with investments in these basic classifications of infrastructure; hunger could be eliminated.

In October 2020, in response to an earlier food crisis, I delineated the following necessary actions (below) that should have been taken. These measures are still valid today, and should be implemented now, without delay.

Emergency Action Required

We must urgently deliver food to starving people. One single human being dying from starvation is intolerable. Every creative soul that perishes is a loss to the human race.
Nations producing food surpluses must allocate food shipments to feed starving people.
Logistics for delivery will have to done in a military fashion or directly by qualified military personnel supported by governments.
Roads, railways, and bridges constructed for emergency food delivery can serve as an initial platform for expansion to a higher plateau of infrastructure required for economic growth.
Debts must be suspended to enable nations to direct money away from onerous payments of debt service to growing and distributing food.
A new financial architecture-a New Bretton Woods must be established with a facility to issue credit to finance critical categories of infrastructure necessary for economic growth and food production.

Read my earlier posts:

Famine in Africa: More Than Humanitarian Aid Required

COVID-19 Tragedy Compels Revamping Globalization and Food Production

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton.

Nigerian Water Minister, Suleiman Adamu, Announces Conference to Replenish Lake Chad and Several Hydro-Electric Projects

November 13, 2017November 13, 2017 Lawrence agriculture, Boko Haram, Cameroon, Chad, electrical power, hydro-electric., irrigation, Lake Chad, LCBC, Nigeria, Suleiman Adamu, UNESCO, water supply

UNESCO Backs Campaign to Save Lake Chad

November 11, 2017 Nigeria’s Water Minister Suleiman Adamu announced that UNESCO is backing an international campaign to save Lake Chad from drying up. UNESCO is sponsoring an international conference in February in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, where the solution advocated by Nigeria and by the Lake Chad Basin Committee will be presented.

Adamu said that the commission had proposed inter-basin water transfer from Congo Basin to the evaporating lake as a measure of saving it from total extinction. “This is a huge infrastructure project that will change the dynamics of the region and it is a long- term project with a lot of consensus to build on, as well as diplomatic issues having to do with different countries,” Adamu said according to PM News Nigeria media outlet.

“We therefore need to do a lot of advocacy to make the members of the Congo Basin understand that we are not taking away their water but taking only 5% of the natural resource to keep the Lake Chad alive,” he said. “We hope that at the end of the conference in February next year, we will have an international consensus on what to do, leverage on and how to get a lot of resources and funding.”

Adamu, who was attending a UNESCO General Conference in Paris, said that they considered the inter-basin water transfer as the most suitable option, but that they would not, however, insist on it, and “allow the UNESCO experts to advise on any cheaper available alternatives, if any,” as PM News reported. Adamu told PM News that the initial study on the project costed the water transfer project at $14 billion.

“We have a 60,000 hectares irrigation scheme under the South-Chad Irrigation scheme, which was designed to depend on intake of water from the Lake Chad to irrigate the 60,000 hectares for the production of wheat. That irrigation scheme is not working now because the water is not available. We need the water to revive that investment. All the efforts the administration had been making to boost food production and reduce food imports stands to benefit if the Lake Chad is revived,” he said.

Adamu said that a lot of other economic activities would be revived and the general livelihood of the people in the area would improve with the revival of the lake. The lake, on which the lives of 30 million people depend, is bordered by Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger; it has shrunk by 90%. “Clearly, the major factor of the Boko Haram insurgency is that there are lots of young people that are living in that area without any opportunity whatsoever because of the shrinking lake. Herdsmen had been forced to move southward and eastward and you can see that crises are getting increased between farmers and herdsmen,” he said.

Federal Government of Nigeria to complete 21 other dams, irrigation projects by 2019

Grace Obike, The Nation, Abuja, November 11, 2017

Apart from the Gurara hydropower plant, Kashimbila hydropower plant, Gurara II, Lokoja and Dasin hausa, which has either been completed, about to be completed or in talks with potential investors. The Federal Government is poised to complete seven other ongoing water supply projects and twenty one dams and irrigation projects between 2018 and 2019.

FG is also in advanced discussions with potential investors for the Gurara II, Lokoja and Dasin hausa hydropower projects, which when completed will produce a combined 1,250MW electricity to the national grid. Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu made this disclosure in Abuja, while presenting the two years score card of his ministry. He added that at his resumption of office, his ministry agreed to prioritize the 116 uncompleted or abandoned major projects he had met and deploy resources towards completing and commissioning all high and medium priority projects from 2016 to 2019.

His words.” We have concluded a Technical Audit and prioritized. the hitherto uncompleted or abandoned 116 major projects that I met in the Ministry. We are deploying most of our resources towards completing and commissioning all the high and medium priority projects from 2016 – 2019. It is in this regard that we have completed and commissioned Central Ogbia Regional Water Supply Project in Bayelsa State. It is also my pleasure to inform this gathering that the following projects have also been completed and are ready for commissioning: “Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply Project, Edo State.

We have concluded a Technical Audit and prioritized. the hitherto uncompleted or abandoned 116 major projects that I met in the Ministry. We are deploying most of our resources towards completing and commissioning all the high and medium priority projects from 2016 – 2019. It is in this regard that we have completed and commissioned Central Ogbia Regional Water Supply Project in Bayelsa State. It is also my pleasure to inform this gathering that the following projects have also been completed and are ready for commissioning: “Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply Project, Edo State rehabilitation of Ojirami Dam Water Supply Project, Edo State. Kashimbiia Dam, Taraba State. Ogwashi-Uku Dam, Delta State. “Two (2) other projects: Shagari and Barikin Ladi Irrigation Projects will be completed in early 2018.

Our plan is to complete 7 other ongoing Water Supply Projects and 21 Dam and Irrigation Projects between 2018 and 2019, including the following: Water Supply Projects, Inyishi Water Supply Project, Ekeremor Water Supply Project, Sabke/Dutsi/Mashi Water Supply Projects, Zobe Water Supply Project, Mangu Water Supply Project. “Dam & Irritation Projects. Middle Ogun Irrigation Project, Middle Rima Valley Irrigation Project, Gari Irrigation Project, Kontagora Auna Dam Project, Bagwai Irrigation Project,Tada Shonga Irrigation Project, Adani Rice Irrigation Project, Ekuku Dam Project, Lower Anambra Irrigation Project, Ile-Ife Dam Project, Zauro Polder Irrigation Project and Otukpo Multipurpose Dam Project. ” Our Roadmap identified Dams with Hydro Power potential for Development and we have been in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing (FMWPH) to that effect. “We are currently making progress for the concessioning of the 30MW Gurara Hydropower plant which is planned to come into full operation by mid 2018. We are also progressing on our collaboration with FMWPH to concession the 40MW Kashimbila Hydropower Plant recently completed. In addition, we are in advanced discussions with potential investors for other hydropower projects including Gurara II (350MW), Lokoja (750MW) and Basin Hausa (150MW).

“With 1,800m3/Capita/year of available renewable water resources, Nigeria is not a water poor country.

“The Ministry has also championed the signing of an MOU between the Lake Chad Basin Commission and a Chinese company, who are presently undertaking further feasibility study on the proposed Interbasin Water Transfer Project from the Congo River into the Lake Chad. Furthermore, in an effort to arrive at the best solution in saving the Lake Chad, an International Conference on the Lake is now scheduled to hold in Abuja from 26th -28tln February, 2018 in collaboration with LCBC and UNESCO. “In addition, the Ministry has completed the engineering design and is set to commence in 2018 the Hawal InterBasin Transfer from River Hawal to River Ngadda. Phase 1 of the project is to augment water supply to Alau Dam so as to provide more sustainable source of water supply to Maiduguri and environs. Phase 2 of the project aims to resuscitate the 60,000Ha South Chad Irrigation Scheme, which became moribund following continuous drying up of Lake Chad over the years.”