Awra Amba is an intentional community of around 500 people founded in northern Ethiopia to combat poverty, exploitation and gender inequality. At the heart of this magnanimous project is a simple question: why should any one human being exploit another? This is the question that the founder of Awra Amba, Zumra...

Food insecurity and poor nutritional status remain widespread problems in the Horn of Africa (HOA). A multi-pronged nutrition-sensitive approach to development has been shown to be the best route for sustained reductions in undernutrition. One of the objectives of this report was to review Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) coordination...

The South Wollo Zone of Amhara Region in Ethiopia is one of the areas of focus for FAO’s two-year project on Youth mobility, food security and poverty reduction. With funding from the Italian Development Cooperation, the RYM Project began in 2015 and ended in February 2018. About 71 percent of Ethiopia’s population...

Each year, rural areas lose a promising share of their workforce, as youth leave their homes and migrate to cities or move abroad in search of a better future. The distress induced by poverty, food insecurity and a lack of employment opportunities push many youth around the world to search...

Despite government efforts to reduce poverty and food insecurity, Ethiopia remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with around 25 million people living in extreme poverty. The country is exposed to a wide range of natural hazards, especially recurrent drought, such as that induced by El Niño in Amhara and...

Storage losses at the farm are often assumed to be an important contributor to presumed large postharvest losses in developing countries. However, reliable and representative data on these losses are often lacking. The study investigates farmers’ storage decisions and self-reported storage losses for grain based on two recent large-scale household...

As part of FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative (BGI) the FAO Member Countries of the Eastern Africa Sub-Region met to agree on a strategy for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture within the Blue Growth Initiative in Eastern Africa (BGI Strategy). The BGI is an FAO flagship initiative that aims at...

For over 40 years, natural hazards (mainly droughts, floods and landslides) have affected millions of people in the eastern Africa sub-region. The impact of these hazards have been high, continue to rise in frequency and are mostly felt in the agriculture and food sectors. In some other countries of the...

In this article, we analyze opportunities and constraints for upgrading product quality in the dairy value chain in Ethiopia. Our analysis is based on an integrated understanding of supply chain performance both from producer and from consumer perspectives. We outline as main drivers for quality upgrading: (a) factors that influence...

The report outlines the results of an EU-wide survey among young farmers carried out by CEJA and DeLaval in all Member States. Based on a questionnaire, the objective was to discover the opinion of young farmers in relation to the sustainability of the agricultural sector, together with the challenges they...

This report synthesizes the analysis and findings of a set of seven country impact evaluation studies that explore the impact of cash transfer programmes on household economic decision-making, productive activities and labour allocation in sub-Saharan Africa. The seven countries are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Results from...

The beehives of Ethiopia, Africa’s top honey producer, make about a quarter of the continent’s honey, but travellers who come to sample the liquid gold often find there isn’t enough to go around. In a country where 85% of all jobs are in agriculture, industry experts say the beekeeping – or...

New drought across swathes of southern Ethiopia may jeopardize the East African nation's restoration of food security after the worst agricultural seasons in decades unless urgent efforts are made to shore up vulnerable households in rural areas, FAO warned today. While an impressive government-led humanitarian effort has sharply reduced the number...

Agroecology is deeply rooted in the ecological rationale of traditional small-scale agriculture, representing long established examples of successful agricultural systems characterized by a tremendous diversity of domesticated crop and animal species maintained and enhanced by ingenuous soil, water and biodiversity management regimes, nourished by complex traditional knowledge systems. Such complex...

Trade in agriculture must now also play a central role in implementing many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by the United Nations in autumn 2015. The SDGs will have a direct and profound effect on trade in agriculture. Agriculture, in turn, will have a key role in...

This paper investigates the nature, extent, and impacts of credit constraints in Ethiopia’s agriculture. Using a direct elicitation approach on a panel of 5,308 smallholder farmers, we find that around 66.6% were credit constrained, a majority of them (71.9%) due to risk factors and transaction costs (14.33%). The hypothesized heterogeneity...

Social protection is increasingly recognized as a critical strategy for poverty reduction and inclusive growth. Both, the 2030 Agenda, as well as Agenda for Humanity, stress the critical role social protection can play in the fight against poverty and exclusion, but also as a component of resilience building. However, more...

What is the optimal size and composition of Rural Savings and Credit Cooperatives (RuSACCOs)? With these broader questions in mind, we characterize alternative formation of RuSACCOs and their implications in improving rural households’ access to financial services, including savings, credit and insurance services. We find that some features of RuSACCOs...

Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), FAW, is an insect native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. Its larval stage (photo) feeds on more than 80 plant species, including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton. FAW can cause significant yield losses if not well managed. It can...

What is the optimal size and composition of rural financial cooperatives (RFCs)? With this broad question in mind, we characterize alternative formations of RFCs and the implications of each in improving the access of rural households to financial services, including savings, credit, and insurance services. We find that some features...