ADDIS ABABA - Expanding commercialization and reducingpost-harvest loss crucial to ensurefood self-sufficiency in Ethiopia, said the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).
Approached by The Ethiopian Herald, MoA Food and Nutrition Coordination Office Head Alemtsehay Sergawi said that expanding agriculture commercialization, ensuring food safety and reducingpost harvesting losses would contribute to ensure food self-sufficiency in the country.
The nutrition sensitive agro-food system strategy implementation, focusing on widely producing of green leafy vegetables and others would contribute to fill the micro nutrient deficiency. The process needed ensuring the availability of nutritionally enriched food products by affordable price to community, she said.
Food import substitution would be achieved by properly managing agricultural products' losses as well as enhancing quality production and productivity, Office Head added.
For his part, Hawassa University Agriculture Department Lecturer and Researcher YirsawDemeke (PhD) said that the country has been losing 30 to 40% of agricultural products during post-harvesting period.
"If we manage this loss properly, the country would ensure food self-sufficiency shortly," he said.
Ethiopia's policy that was merely focusing on boosting production and productivity, lack of awareness, implementation limitations of policies and strategies and others contributed to result the aforementioned percent of loss, he stated.
Focusing on boosting of production and productivity alone is not satisfactory, but it needs reducing loss and improving quality, Yirsaw said.
Having different policies and strategies alone would not address the sector problems as lack of awareness among the community has been challenging post harvesting process, he mentioned.
Ethiopia can reduce the current post-harvest losses by half through proper awareness creation among communities,he said.
To do so, Yirsaw suggested that the country can draw experiences from European nations that minimized the post-harvest losses by less than 2%.
