Agricultural Research for Ethiopian Renaissance: Challenges, Opportunities and Directions

Abstract

Agriculture in Ethiopia is accorded high priority and significant investments have been made to modernize the sector. The sector is set to play a pivotal role for ensuring food and nutrition security, providing raw materials for industry, generating foreign exchange revenue, and providing employment opportunities for the vast majority of the population. As a result, there have been significant changes in production and productivity growth in recent times. Should the country fully meet food and nutrition security goals, and compete and thrive in the global market, however, transforming agriculture to the future date of high impact is essential. Future agriculture is expected to consistently increase productivity and revenue while reducing costs, employing fewer resources (land, water and energy) per unit output produced, lessening environmental, economic and social costs, reducing vulnerability to Climate Change effects, and improving resilience capacity. In this regard, scientific research has a lot to offer for agriculture to realize its sustainable development objectives through provision of innovations that help improving productivity and production efficiency, climate smartness of landscapes, etc. Over 50 years now, the Ethiopian Agricultural Research system has been playing an enabling role in ushering developments in agriculture sector through scientific research and technology development. As the Ethiopian Agricultural Research System celebrates its Gold Jubilee in 2016, therefore, this report attempts to provide a brief account of the Agricultural Research System, its achievements and suggest future research directions. The Ethiopian Agricultural Research System