Ethiopian Development Research Institute(EDRI) and IFPRI Ethiopia Strategy Support Program 2 (IFPRI-ESSP2) Seminar Series March 16, 2009

1. Crop Production in Ethiopia:
A Spatial–Structural Analysis
Jordan Chamberlin and Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
ESSP-II/EDRI Seminar
16 March 2009
Addis Ababa,

2. Introduction
 Motivation
• Enhancing food security a policy priority;
• Increasing productivity a key ingredient towards food security;
 Vital to assess where agricultural production is.
 Objectives
• Current: To summarise the structure and dynamics of food crop production in
Ethiopia over the last decade;
• Ongoing: To understand the determinants of the agricultural productivity and its
growth.

3. Outline
 Approaches and Data
 Current State - the state of crop production, circa 2008
• What is produced; Where is it produced; How is it produced
• Dynamics - pattern and sources of growth
• Some closing observations

4. Approaches and Data
Approach – Decomposition
• What are the relative contributions of acreage expansion and yield increase?
• Do changes in crop prices matter a great deal?
• Does crop diversification/specialisation contribute much to output growth?
Output decomposition
dQi Adyi
i
yidAi
Revenue decomposition
n n n n
dR aiyi pi dA A aiyidpi A ai pdyi A yi pdai
i i
i 1 i 1 i 1 i 1

5. Approaches and Data
 Geographic disaggregation
• Heterogeneity of production and marketing contexts
 Domains
• Capture initial conditions
• Capture potential for growth

6. +
+ =

7.  Zonal level analysis
 Simplified domain
framework
Low-access High-access
Low-pop- growth led by
(mixed growth)
density area-expansion
High-pop- growth led by
(little growth)
density yield-increases

10. Approaches and Data
 Data
Dataset compiled from cereal production and price data at the zonal
level collected by the Central Statistics Agency (CSA)’s Agricultural
Sample Surveys - 1996/97-2007/08 (1989-2000 E.C.).
 Caveats
• Cereals – acreage, output, food expenditure, calorie intake;
• Forty zones of the four regions – Amhara, Oromiya, SNNP, and Tigray.
(dominant in the production of temporary crops);
• Meher season.

11. Current State
Average (2004/2005 – 2007/08 )
Area Cultivated in hectares Production in quintals
Crop Number of Share in total Share in total
holders Level area cultivated Level production
(%) (%)
Grain 11,519,148 10,382,365 92.7 140,902,733 79.8
Cereals 11,156,837 8,230,211 73.4 120,629,724 68.3
Teff 5,462,782 2,337,850 20.9 24,079,480 13.6
Barley 3,842,462 1,024,390 9.1 13,264,217 7.5
Wheat 4,118,164 1,439,098 12.8 22,933,077 13
Maize 7,287,931 1,595,238 14.2 33,142,865 18.8
Sorghum 4,253,534 1,429,886 12.8 22,161,808 12.5
Pulses 6,377,027 1,384,499 12.4 14,955,466 8.5
Oilseeds 3,127,131 767,655 6.9 5,317,543 3
Vegetables 4,936,741 106,585 1 4,248,252 2.4
Root crops 4,757,733 174,826 1.6 14,732,919 8.3
Fruit crops 2,658,415 51,078 0.5 4,034,590 2.3
Others (Chat, Coffee) 2,068,262 471,278 4.2 3,634,091 2.0

12. Current State
Average Annual growth rate - 2004/05-2007/08
(1997-2000 E.C.) (%) Yield (quintals
Production Area Cultivated Yield (quintals per hectare)
Crop
(quintals) (hectares) per hectare)
Grain 11.8 3.9
Cereals 12.2 4.8 6.2 14.0
Teff 15.9 6.7 7.7 10.2
Barley 0.7 -3.4 4.5 13.0
Wheat 2.1 0.6 1.5 15.9
Maize 18.9 9 7.8 20.6
Sorghum 18.3 7.4 8.9 15.4
Note: Cereal yield is calculated as acreage-share weighted average of the yields
of the five major cereals listed in the table – they account for more than 95 percent
of cereal acreage and cereal output.

13. Cereal production 2007/08
Quintals
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT
1000 - 100, 000
100, 000 - 250, 000
250, 000 - 500, 000
500, 000 - 1, 000, 000
> 1, 000, 000

14. Cereal area 2007/08
Hectares
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT
100 - 5000
5000 - 10000
10000 - 50000
50000 - 100000
100000 - 500000

15. Cereal yields 2007/08
Quintals/hectare
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT
0 - 5
5 - 10
10 - 15
15 - 20
20 - 30

16. Current State
How?
Fertiliser
Applied Fertiliser application Share of crop area (%)
area
(share in (total (quintals per Improved Extension
Crop Pesticide
total area quintals/ hectare of seed Irrigated package
applied
cultivated - total fertilizer applied crop area covered
crop area
%) hectares) applied area) crop area crop area
2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08
Cereals 39.0 0.45 1.16 4.7 20.8 1.1 14.5
Teff 54.3 0.52 0.95 0.7 30.5 0.7 13.8
Barley 30.5 0.30 0.99 0.6 20.7 1.2 11.0
Wheat 62.1 0.85 1.36 2.9 43.6 0.5 21.9
Maize 32.8 0.54 1.63 19.5 2.9 2.2 21.3
Sorghum 3.1 0.03 1.05 0.1 5.4 1.2 1.4

17. Current State
How – cont’d
Average age of holder Proportion of male Median education level Mean household size
(years) holders of holder (number of members)
(%) (years of schooling)
41.5 80.9 1.1 5.2

18. Fertilizer use: 2006/07
PERCENTAGE OF HOLDERS USING FERTILIZER
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT
0 - 20%
20 - 40%
40 - 60%
60 - 80%
80 - 100%

19. Growth in cereal production
Summary – substantial growth over the last decade, the bulk of it in the second half
Production Area Cultivated Yield
Growth Level Growth
Level
Year Crop Level (quintals) rate (%) Growth (quintals/ rate (%)
(hectares)
(1997/98- rate (%) hectare) (1997/98-
2007/08) 2007/08)
Barley 7,863,950 681,950 11.5
Maize 19,288,510 1,100,610 17.5
1997-1998
Sorghum 10,697,400 954,740 11.2
Teff 13,073,480 1,747,190 7.5
Wheat 11,067,850 787,720 14.1
Sum 61,991,190 5,272,210
Barley 13,548,071 72.3 984,943 44.4 13.8 19.3
Maize 37,497,491 94.4 1,767,389 60.6 21.2 21.1
2007-2008
Sorghum 26,591,292 148.6 1,533,537 60.6 17.3 54.8
Teff 29,929,235 128.9 2,565,155 46.8 11.7 55.9
Wheat 23,144,885 109.1 1,424,719 80.9 16.2 15.6
Sum 130,710,974 110.9 8,275,743 57.0

20. Growth in cereal production
1. Output, acreage, and yield levels and growth rates varied widely
within and across years – a large part of the latter almost certainly a
reflection of rain-fall variability.
Acreage Production Yield
CV CV CV
CV Levels CV Levels CV Levels
Growth Growth Growth
(%) (%) (%)
(%) (%) (%)
Barley 128.0 2073.2 151.9 4146.2 34.0 2198.6
Maize 104.5 1208.4 121.4 2586.9 34.4 2799.0
Sorghum 111.2 1453.6 119.2 5384.0 47.3 821.3
Teff 105.2 1247.2 120.4 7343.4 34.9 626.6
Wheat 137.8 1002.5 159.4 3661.4 46.2 982.7
 Capture variations across space (zones), time (years)

21. Changes in production: 1996/7 – 2006/7
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT

22. Changes in area: 1996/7 – 2006/7
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT

23. Changes in yield: 1996/7 – 2006/7
BARLEY MAIZE SORGHUM
TEFF WHEAT

24. Growth in cereal production
2. Acreage expansion originates the bulk of the growth in total output
during the period,
• Out of the sixty crop-domain-period specific pairs of yield and acreage
contribution shares, in only twelve did the share of yield was higher.
• Uncorrelated crop zonal-level acreage share of a crop and the significance
of contribution of yield changes to zonal-level growth in that crop’s output.
3. The relative contributions of acreage and yield changes to output growth
were not statistically significantly different across development domains, crop
belts, as well as time periods - only exceptions, the output growth
contribution of changes in sorghum yield and acreage were different across
domains.
• Teff the exception - comparable contribution come from acreage and yield
increases

25. Growth in cereal production
4. the contribution of yield growth rises measurably towards the end of the
period.
Median Contributions of change in crop yield to
Year Changes in Quantity of Cereal Output (%)
Barley Maize Sorghum Teff
1998/99 49.2 36.8 53.2 48.6
1999/2000 8.1 25.7 19.2 39.2
2000/01 48.0 40.0 25.6 59.5
2001/02 37.1 31.1 26.9 25.3
2003/04 -0.3 29.6 36.7 38.8
2004/05 49.2 75.0 55.1 79.4
2005/06 57.1 67.4 48.9 60.7
2006/07 19.2 21.4 26.6 16.8
2007/08 41.5 30.3 41.9 69.7
 Acreage expansion also dominates as a source of growth at the crop level. A
striking exception is teff – rising yield contributes more than increased
acreage.

26. Changes in input use (2001/2 – 2006/7)

27. Some Final Observations
 Acreage expansion continued throughout the period covered.
• sources of acreage expansion;
• and its potential impact, including on other uses of land and consequences thereof
(environmental, say)
Need to systematically investigate
 Significant growth in yields was recorded over time. However:
• Cereal yields are still low – less than a fifth of the level in Egypt, less than a third of that in
China and Viet Nam;
• High dependence on rainfall with negligible irrigation coverage of staple crops production;
• Highly undercapitalised with physical capital per land-holder of US$138 – 3000 tractors in use
in Ethiopia during 2006 versus 163,000 in Viet Nam;
• Meagre human capital stock (measured in terms of education alone), with 64 percent of land-
holders not literate and only 6 percent of them having higher than six years of formal
schooling.
• Only about 40 percent of cereal acreage benefit from chemical fertilizers with intensity of
fertilizer use relatively low in comparison with countries like Egypt, Bangladesh, India, and
Vietnam.
 Pertinent to explore why yields remain and how could they be raised significantly and
rapidly.