Food Security in
Ethiopia
Context:
The
population of Ethiopia has exploded to 84.3 million in 2012, almost tripling
since 1971 with the largest rate of increase between the 1980s-1990s and from
2000 to 2008. Currently its population growth rate is among one of the top 10
in the world, and is home to some 1352 000 refugees from areas such as Somalia
and Eritrea since 2009. The population of Ethiopia is projected to grow to over
210 million by 2060. With such a large and expanding population food security and
sustainability therefore becomes an issue that commands attention in Ethiopia.
Agricultural
activities in Ethiopia make up 84% of the country’s labour force, this being
because agriculture is Ethiopia’s most important export and largest contributor
towards economic growth (arguably due to the labour factors of production
available due to lack of education in rural areas). Furthermore, agriculture
output is depended on by Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken population as a source of
subsistence farming.
It is estimated
that 5.2 million people in Ethiopia are either food insecure or have a real
threat of becoming so. This has been worsened due to poor rainfall during the
February-May and June-October seasons impacting on crop yields, and furthermore
high fuel prices have exacerbated the problem of the distribution of food
cheaply and therefore limited its accessibility. In 2010 Ethiopia was rated 171
out of 182 countries on the Global Hunger Index, which ranks developing
countries on the proportion of undernourished people, underweight children
under five and child mortality rate of its inhabitants. In terms of child
growth, in 2005 the following statistics were recorded: 20% of babies were less
than 2500g at birth (as opposed to an average of 3.4kg), 53.5% of children less
than 5 years old and 30.6% of women that were pregnant were anaemic, 34.6% of
all children were underweight, 50.7% suffered from growth retardation due to
insufficient diets and 12.3% experienced severe under-nutrition which leads to
permanent impairment of the immune system.
Deforestation:
In the
beginning of the 1900s it is estimated that around 35% of Ethiopia’s land was
covered by trees. This figure is believed to have now decreased to 11.9%; this
equates to a loss of 1410 km2 of natural forest each year.
Deforestation undermines food security in Ethiopia because tree roots prevent
soil erosion and nutrients in top-soil being washed or blown away because they
actively bind the soil together. When this protection does not exist soil
erosion reduces the nutrient levels in the soil and thus plant and crop yields,
which means a) it is harder for rural communities to find and gather food, and
b) it undermines farmers ability to produce enough food to keep up with rising
food demand, as well as the efforts of subsistence farmers (which have been
promoted through government land acts in the 1990’s) to provide for their
families and communities. Deforestation is arguably driven by the demand for
wood in Ethiopia and abroad, which provides jobs for many unskilled Ethiopians
to acquire money to buy food, for example.
Urbanisation:
From 1967 to
1975 rural populations moved into urban areas at an increasing rate seeking
work and better living conditions in Ethiopia. In 1975 government introduced
land reform policies that provided incentives to try and lower the urbanisation rate. The Land Reform Program also encouraged agriculture in an attempt to increase
the rate of produce output which was not keeping pace with the population
growth rate between 1970 and 1983. Agricultural output did increase, but it is
disputed whether this was caused by the Land Reform Program or more favourable
weather conditions. What was seen was the creation of peasant associations of
large villages based on agriculture, which arguably increased food security in
those areas. Urban populations have grown by 8.1% from 1975 to 2000, partly due
to urbanisation. This is a problem because Rural-Urban migration continues to
be a threat to the food security in rural villages, because as members of those
villages leave their communities there is less labour available to sustain
agriculture, subsistence or otherwise, which therefore undermines the food
security of those villages.
Exports and Cash Crops:
Ethiopian
exports amounted to 1.4 billion US dollars between 2009 and 2010, and produces
more coffee than any other country in Africa. Furthermore, livestock breeding
is a major Ethiopian export industry, being the 10th largest
producer of livestock in the world and additionally exporting other related
products such as leather based on the raw materials when the animals are
slaughtered. Development of Ethiopia’s floriculture sector also means that
Ethiopia is likely to become 1st in the world for flower and plant exports.
The image
above shows the respective ratios of various Ethiopian exports in relation to
total export. Furthermore, since 95% of cross-border trade is estimated to be
unofficial, exports such as livestock are expected to generate an income for Ethiopian’s
of up to 100 times the official figure (up to 300 million USD). Focus in
industries such as livestock are beneficial to food security because it lowers
the price of livestock through increased supply of it. Furthermore increased
trade in general stimulates demand for Ethiopian currency which means that Ethiopia
can afford to import more food if it needs to. Ethiopia also has the potential
to expand its gold industry and thus increase trade because it has untapped
mineral resources, however political instability has prevented Ethiopia from
utilizing these resources to their full potential (it was involved in a gold
swindle in 2008, for example, which undermines importer confidence and hence
import rates).
However there
are also detrimental effects to food security because of Ethiopia’s focus on
producing cash crops and livestock for export to attract foreign currency and
promote wealth. The obvious objection is that this focuses the country’s factors
of production towards growing non-staple foods such as coffee which can’t be
consumed to alleviate hunger problems on a large scale. Secondly, while this
trade does promote wealth, it often promotes wealth for the people who are
already food secure because they have more control over factors of production than
for the poorer members of Ethiopia who need food the most. Furthermore,
arguably agriculture of staple foods is more important than that of cash crops
for export given Ethiopia’s food crisis, however the market distorts the
importance of production of these goods because there is a link between the
members of society who are food insecure and who have low incomes, and
therefore they do not have sufficient income to stipulate demand for staple
foods in the market, meaning production in Ethiopia does not best satisfy the
needs of its people, but rather the needs of the people who have money. Because
of an increased shift in factors of production towards non-staple foods, the
supply for staple foods is lowered and therefore the price of staple foods is raised,
therefore making them less accessible to poorer members of the community.
Because the
situation of food security has large negative externalities for the state of
Ethiopia, such as increased state support for the hungry, more money needing to
be spent on state medicine as people become sicker more easily and largely
negative effects to the development of human capital there is arguably economic
justification for the intervention of government in the market with regards to
agricultural production through pricing incentives such as subsidies on staple
foods. Furthermore, inflation caused by rising food prices (because more
production is focused on exports rather than domestic use and therefore
decreases domestic supply, raising domestic prices) threatens economic
stability in Ethiopia, which is another justification for government
intervention in this sector, especially since we see inflation rates of as high
as 40% in August of 2011, for example. A focus on livestock in Ethiopia for
export is also one that undermines food security in Ethiopia further, since it
takes much more effort, time investment and water (which Ethiopia does not use
efficiently) per unit energy of food compared to agricultural crops, and other
more efficient provisions for protein intake can be made; however we still
think a change in livestock output (especially since it is also used as an
export and therefore only a portion is consumed in the domestic market) will
only create a marginal decline in the protein intake received by food insecure
individuals, but would drastically
increase the amount of food from crop yields to these consumers for the
reasons mentioned above.
Utilization of resources:
Ethiopia is
known as the “water tower” of Eastern Africa because it has 14 major rivers
flowing into it from the high tableland. It therefore also has the highest
water reserves in Africa; even so, it only uses 1% for power production and
1.5% for agriculture. Given that Ethiopia suffers from lack of rainfall in
agriculture, under-use of Ethiopia’s water reserves is a serious issue to food
security. This is largely because there is insufficient infrastructure such as
irrigation to effectively use these reserves.
Land
policy:
The
Ethiopian constitution states that land belongs to the state and the people;
citizens may lease land for up to 99 years, however they are unable to mortgage
or sell it. Entities may only rent land for up to 20 years; the intended effect
for land to continually be redistributed and go to the most productive user.
Every few years when land is redistributed it is shared between more people
(land is also distributed by the amount of people living together who need it),
therefore giving less land to farmers. Even though they may be more farmers,
this may be problematic because large farming businesses are needed to realize
economies of scale and therefore make production more efficient; however as a
result of these policies the majority of agricultural production comes from
small farming sectors, arguably producing agricultural products in a less efficient
way than could be done by a small number of mass-producers. Because land is
redistributed every few years this also leads to less long-term sustainable
investment by firms in their land to become more efficient producers in the
long run, because the incentives are removed because they would not receive
those benefits themselves in the long run if the land is redistributed when
their investment has taken effect, and also lowers the long term returns for
them on their investment as a result. It also removes the disincentives of land
degradation for similar reasons. This is problematic because it means measures
that take time to implement to increase the efficiency of agricultural
production in relation to land investment are not realised, therefore lowering
production levels and meaning there is less food to go around in the economy,
also raising food prices.
Economic policy with regards to
agriculture:
The
government of Ethiopia practices price-fixing for agricultural goods; they buy
crops from farmers at a minimum-price and distribute it accordingly. While this
policy lowers the price of consumption, it also lowers the output of farmers
since they have less incentive to produce more crops because they are forced to
sell them at a lower price. This policy also creates a deadweight loss to
society, which can be seen as the lost efficiency created by government by not
allowing the market to allocate its own price dependent on demand. Because the
majority of people who are food insecure are poor, a balance between lower
prices and increased production must be found: solutions to this can be through
price discrimination (perhaps through food-tokens), direct government provision
of food and momentary benefits on a means-tested basis. Subsidies on
agricultural production are also arguably a more favourable policy for
government to in-act, because it lowers price as well as increasing supply of
agricultural production.
Political
instability and interference in food provision:
In the early
1990’s government spent up to 60% of its GDP on war related activities to
resolve conflict in Ethiopia. This has undermined their ability to fund
policies and projects to provide for their people who do not have access to
food and reduce their problem of food security. Approximately 7 million
Ethiopians receive food aid each year; however food aid given internationally
is also influenced on political grounds. Because Ethiopia is a socialist
country western countries are reluctant to support it through international
aid, preferring to distribute aid to democracies and only if socialist
countries make a more towards a more free-market orientated democracy (other
reasons for this include the believe by western countries that a free market is
the solution to an economically efficient market, and feel their aid is going
to waste by giving it to countries that have socialist economic practices).
This reduces the potential food aid Ethiopia receives from the rest of the
world. In 1985 when Ethiopia was suffering from famine it received no food aid
because the USSR who used to give them aid (partly because it too, was a
socialist country) was no longer in a position to do so.
Furthermore,
when food aid arrived at a later stage to address this famine the Ethiopian
government distributed this food on a political basis – they did not distribute
food to rebel areas in the country (during a period of political instability).
This is harmful because people who need food aid do then not receive it, and
secondly because when governments practice this form of political
discrimination it gives international organisations and countries more reasons
not to give food aid to these countries, because it would not be distributed in
the most efficient way to the people who need it and would arguably be wasted.
Lack of transport infrastructure:
In many
areas of Ethiopia there is sometimes a surplus of food, however because of lack
of infrastructure and transport costs the extent to which these surpluses are
transported to regions where food is scarce is limited.
Proposed
solutions to the food crisis in Ethiopia:
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