The country is already a top African wheat producer, but there is potential for growth.

Ethiopia is sub-Saharan Africa's largest wheat producer, but a growing population is relocating to towns and cities and eating so much bread that demand for the grain outstrips what farmers can produce.

That could be changing, thanks to an African Development Bank scheme called Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), which offers new and better seeds that could make Ethiopia self-sufficient within five years.

According to the Bank, rolling out irrigation systems and new types of wheat seeds that are suited to Ethiopia's hot, dry climate will boost production, help feed the country's 108 million people and buoy its $201 billion economy.

Jennifer Blanke, the Bank's vice president for agriculture, human and social development, said that new wheat seed types can better tolerate Ethiopia's hot lowlands and yield more grain at harvest time.

"They haven't had this kind of wheat in Ethiopia until the last couple of years through the TAAT program and some work that we've done before -- that we are starting to roll out to farmers at scale," said Blanke.

According to Blanke, the seeds offer Ethiopian farmers a chance to make more money in a country with high rates of joblessness and poverty and where the average annual income is only about $2,200.

"What's exciting about this program is that this is also a cash crop," said Blanke.

"This is also a way for households to actually earn a living."

Agriculture is big business in Ethiopia. It makes up about 35 per cent of the national economy and occupies about 73 per cent of the workforce. Cereals, coffee, oilseed, cotton, sugarcane, cut flowers and khat are among the top crops.

Ethiopia's wheat output has jumped about 70 per cent this past decade but has failed to keep pace with rising demand, so millions of dollars of grain imports are needed to plug the gap, putting a strain on state foreign currency reserves.

As Ethiopians move from rural areas to towns and cities, they eat less traditional teff and more bread.

The Bank's TAAT plan is designed to help Ethiopia become self-sufficient in wheat production by bringing together company executives, farmers, agronomists and policy chiefs in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Martin Fregene, the director of the Bank's department of agriculture and agro-industry, said the scheme could free Ethiopia of the need to import some $600 million of cereal grain each year.

In the past two years, TAAT organizers have bulked up supplies of five improved types of wheat seed and set up 20,000 hectares of irrigated farmland used by some 28,000 smallholder farmers in the country's lowlands.

Ultimately, organizers aim to create 200,000 hectares of irrigated wheat fields in the hot, dry lowlands around the Awash River.

"What they have done here is close to a miracle. What you are seeing here is Ethiopia's answer to the gap in wheat supply," said Fregene.

"The lower land of Ethiopia is a completely new area [for agriculture] that is now growing wheat due to the heat-tolerant varieties."

Farmers in the Awash River region only own plots of less than one hectare in size, on average, yet the new heat-tolerant seeds have boosted yields and made their farms turn better profits.

Under the scheme, Ethiopian farmers can also benefit from hands-on training in using new seeds, which were developed by breeders at the Lebanon-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas.

According to Blanke, the rollout of new seeds and irrigation systems are part of broader efforts to help farmers get fairer prices at market, invest in new equipment and benefit from new roads and other infrastructure.

"In our Feed Africa strategy - it is all about ensuring that Africa puts in place everything needed to produce, buy and manufacture its own food," Blanke said.

Bank officials also seek to help Ethiopian producers turn more of their agricultural produce into goods that fetch better prices when sold in markets and on supermarket shelves, both at home and overseas.

"We are also looking higher up the value chain at processing," said Blanke.

"You don't want to just grow crops, you want to turn them into food."