|
Rural Development and Food Security are crucial parts of development and sustainable poverty reduction in Ethiopia. Roughly 85% of the country's citizens live in rural areas. The success of rural development activities largely lies in the performance of the agriculture sector which employs 85% of the labour force. The agriculture sector in Ethiopia has been plagued with recurrent droughts, high population growth rate, environmental degradation and it has also been hampered by poor economic policies. Therefore, it has not been able to contribute to the overall economic growth of the country at full capacity.
Major Rural Development Challenges
Food security is a major rural development problem in Ethiopia. Since the agriculture industry is largely made up of subsistence farming and is entirely dependant on rain, reoccurring and severe droughts make farming a precarious way of life. Large parts of the country continually suffer from food insecurity and are, at one time or another, dependent on foreign food aid. The local grain markets are also unstable and underdeveloped with bumper harvests leading to collapsed prices and therefore, discouraging farmers' attempts to move away from subsistence farming. Export markets are practically non-existent when measured by the impact they make in the lives of a large part of Ethiopia's rural population.
For further information you may be interested in visiting the following links:
|
