The African Development Bank Group said that it is working in partnership with the government of Ethiopia to help the country’s agricultural development efforts being carried out to realizing food self-sufficiency.
In an exclusive interview with ENA, African Development Bank Group, Deputy Director General, East Africa Region office, and country Director in Ethiopia, Abdul B. Kamara lauded Ethiopia’s effort being made to accelerate the development of agricultural sector.
He said the efforts is really amazing and “in fact it is inspirational the achievement that Ethiopia has recorded in the past 5 years, especially in wheat production.”
Stressing the need for Agriculture to be brought at the front in the continental level as well as it requires leadership at the top, the Deputy Director General appreciated Ethiopia in this regard for the government has been giving the utmost priority to the development of sector over the past years through various policies and programs including the current homegrown economic reform program.
In all of these programs, agriculture has always been at the front and supporting systems have always been created, he indicated.
African Development Bank has been working in partnership with Ethiopia over the past 10 years in various areas including in infrastructures, energy, roads and agriculture focusing on drought resilience sustainable livelihood in the Agri- industrial parks, he noted.
Furthermore, since 2018 the partnership between AfDB and Ethiopia focused on the agricultural sector in collaboration with other various stakeholders, he underscored.
The Deputy Director General stressed the need for not only Ethiopia but also Africans as whole to exert many efforts to ensure food self-sufficiency by utilizing the huge potential that exists in the continent.
''In the case of Ethiopia, we found out the problem of wheat through study, which is heat. Therefore, we engaged with the international institutions to produce heat tolerance varieties and provided 60,000 tons of ‘’Heat Tolerant Varieties’.”
The size of farmland covered with wheat irrigation development in 2018 was 5,000 hectares, he said, however, currently 1.3 million hectares of land is cultivated with wheat crop, which is inspirational to others and exemplary that needs to be replicated on the continent.
Stressing the need for African countries to exert efforts to strengthen their agriculture sector by drawing lessons from Ethiopia he noted some countries are already visiting Ethiopia to share experience.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency