The Green Revolution Has Been Underway in Ethiopia:

Comments on Tsegaye Tegenu’s Discussion

The main message of the papers by Tsegaye Tegenu posted on Aiga Forum is that the rising Ethiopian rural population is causing resource scarcities that in turn perpetuate structural poverty in rural areas. Ethiopia needs a green revolution that stimulates growth in the agricultural sector, as well as industries that employ the unemployed and underemployed rural people. He calls for policies in support of the green revolution and “industrial decentralization”.

The two papers are well researched and informative, although Tsegaye should have avoided writing statements like getting rid off subsistence farming or there is no need to reform and sustain the Ethiopian subsistence agriculture. Such statements make the issues too simplistic and they could even be interpreted as advocating the push towards the green revolution at the expense of the toiling Ethiopian peasantry. Historical experience would also show that densely populated countries like India, the Philippines and Indonesia achieved food self-sufficiency by increasing the productive capacity of smallholder farmers.

My main concern is that Tsegaye appears to have overlooked the progresses made in the past 15 years to promote the green revolution technologies including fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, improved crop varieties, irrigation and other complementary support systems. His oversight is clearly evident from the way he writes stating “I recommend the green revolution...” or, in his response to Yemane T, that the Ethiopian government “must declare its intention on green revolution for the purpose of food-self sufficiency…”. There are studies that have attempted to evaluate performances with respect to fertilizer consumption, adoption of improved crop varieties, crop research, production growth and so on. True, some of these studies have pointed out that farmers have been slow to use modern agricultural inputs. For example, data from the International Fertilizer Industry Association shows that annual fertilizer consumption for Ethiopia rose by only 38% in the period between 1997 (131 metric tons) and 2006 (194 metric tons). One may expect a dramatic increase of demand for fertilizers as farmers become more and more aware of the role of fertilizer technology in supplementing soil nutrients and increasing crop productivity. However, I tend to believe that the slow growth in fertilizer demand has more to do with farmers’ ability to be less dependent on outside sources of inputs. For example, they exchange improved crop varieties locally instead of buying them (one study has identified this practice). They produce composts (natural fertilizers) and, according to recent media reports, this has enabled Ethiopia to save hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign currency (that would have been used to import fertilizers). Farmers remove weeds in the traditional way by hand (instead of using herbicides) or do not use pesticides to kill baboons or birds that destroy crops (the chase them away using dogs and other means); in Asia, pesticides are mainly used to control large populations of rats that wipe out entire crops fields overnight. Irrigation development (another component of the green revolution) has been too slow, perhaps as it requires massive investment in infrastructure including building dams that retain water in the rainy season and design an irrigation system that zigzags uphill to deliver the water to farm fields. The recent years have seen the introduction of irrigation projects in lowlands and Lake Basin areas. The five-year (2005-2010) Plan for Accelerated and Sustainable Development to End Poverty has forecasted the construction of hundreds of farmer agricultural training centres and the expansion of rural physical infrastructures including roads, cooperatives, electricity and so on. All this is to say that the green revolution has already been underway in Ethiopia and government programs have been put in place.

Having said all this, I expect most to agree with Tsegaye that Ethiopian agriculture has exhausted its carrying capacity due to land degradation and population growth. The green revolution alone will not and cannot provide a long-term solution. Tsegaye has a good reason to propose a policy of “industrial decentralization” that encourages the opening of industries in regional cities and towns. My recent paper (aigaforum.com/articles/Rural_Industrialization_in_Ethiopia.pdf) proposes an alternative option that urges the Ethiopian government to enter the countryside with a package of industrial development programs. This may seem unrealistic, yet it has worked for China. The Chinese started by providing technical training for farmers and standardizing industrial technologies. By standardizing the technologies, they ensured that big firms in cities and small cottage industries in remote rural villages use the same production methods to produce the same quality of products to compete equally in national and global markets. Today the toothpaste you use could have been produced in Beijing or a rural village – you don’t know the difference. Ethiopia currently produces hundreds of thousands of university, college, TVET (technical and vocation education training) and high school graduates which could enter rural villages (many going back to their own communities) to run industries. The challenge is to develop industrial technologies that are as simple as grinding mills to install and maintain in rural villages. It is therefore important that the Ethiopian government gives priority to research on engineering technology to enable Ethiopia to produce industrial equipment and tools that are appropriate to the occupational requirements and topographic conditions of the country. Thank you.

Getachew Mequanent

Ottawa, Canada

July 2010