With a drastic rise in food-insecure people worldwide, food insecurity remains a major global challenge. Nevertheless, food insecurity is significantly higher in many developing countries than in developed ones.
Various factors affect food security, including climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, political instability, global trade, and agricultural productivity, as well as socio-economic variables like age, gender, education level, farm size, livestock ownership, and non-farm income.
According to the information obtained from Journal of Agriculture and Food Research Volume 19, March, 2025, To tackle the challenges of food insecurity, governments, policymakers, and development practitioners strongly advise the implementation of strategies that can enhance agricultural production and productivity Agro-clustering, also known as cluster farming, is among the mechanisms used to achieve this goal by enhancing the productivity and income of farmers. Cluster is a French term meaning paw, head, tie, group, gathering, etc. In this sense, cluster farming is a farming approach in which farmers with adjacent farmland voluntarily collaborate to grow the same commodity by pooling a portion of their farmland.
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The source indicated that in the cluster farming approach, farmers are expected to implement the best agronomic practices such as recommended fertilizers, improved seed varieties, pesticides, herbicides, proper tillage, harvesting, and threshing techniques, all of which boost productivity. Thus, different actors can integrate in this farming approach.
It is also beneficial for farmers, and government and non-government organizations that aim to support farmers. For the former, cluster farming could foster farmers-to-farmer information exchange and resource sharing. From the government and non-government side, cluster farming could ease the delivery of agricultural inputs, credit, provision of extension advice, mechanization services like tractors, harvesters and threshers and market linkage.
Considering these merits in mind, the Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) has introduced cluster farming in Ethiopia in 2014. The farming approach has been expanding since its commencement.
According to the information obtained from Ministry of Agriculture, over 10 million hectares of land have been cultivated using cluster farming methods across the country in the last year meher season.
The 2024 agricultural Meher season witnessed a surge in major crops harvest, with production amounting to 506.8 million quintals planning to harvest 616 million quintals of crops from 20.4 hectares of lands.
Along with cluster farming the Ethiopian Government has launched several initiatives, including the promotion of wheat irrigation programs, fertilizer subsidies, duty-free import of agricultural machinery, and policy and legal reforms. These initiatives have led to lower production costs and reduced inflation.
Wheat and maize are among the most crops that have been cultivated in cluster farming approach at national level.
Former Minister of Agriculture Girma Amente (PhD) explaining about the 2025 meher season plan and performance of the ministry said that the ministry plans to sow crops on a total of 21 million hectares nationwide during this season. Of this, significant areas have already been planted with cereal crops such as maize, while the remaining land is being seeded with teff, wheat, barley, and other crops in accordance with regional agro ecological conditions.
The former minister expressed optimism about a better harvest this year, citing increased adoption of modern agricultural technologies and extensive awareness-raising campaigns among farmers.
Inputs essential to boosting productivity including fertilizer, improved seed varieties, and other agricultural resources have been delivered on time to farming communities, he noted.
Girma underscored the importance of the summer (meher) season, which accounts for about 70 percent of the country's total annual agricultural output. This year, 13 million hectares are being cultivated under the cluster farming model an increase from the previous year. He emphasized the continued expansion of cluster farming as key to improving productivity and efficiency.
As to Girma, mechanized farming is also on the rise, with 6 million hectares cultivated using machinery this season. It has been increased by one million hectares from the same period last year.
The most significant breakthrough, according to the minister, is the growing embrace of technology by Ethiopian farmers, which is transforming the sector's productivity.
Ethiopia has set an ambitious target to harvest over 659 million quintals of crops by the end of the season through the cultivation of 21 million hectares of lands.
Wheat development initiative has been designed to develop large fields using cluster cultivation method in wheat-producing areas to ensure food sovereignty, reduce foreign exchange losses, and create employment opportunities for the youths. The initiative has been yielding a lot of successful results which can pave the way to achieve the food sovereignty plan of the country.
Explaining the advantage of cluster farming Girma called that farmers should organize themselves in groups to cultivate in cooperative which can ease farming activities and enhance agricultural production and productivity.
The ministry stressed that it is expected to produce about 177 million quintals of wheat, in this year meher season covering over 3.3 million hectares of land with seeds. Of this, over 2.1 million hectares has been cultivated in cluster farming.
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Likewise maize has been cultivated on 3.1 million hectares of lands to get 160 million quintals of products. Among these lands 2 million hectares have been cultivated in cluster farming system.
Central Ethiopian Regional Administration is among the regions in which wheat cluster farming system is undergoing. Over 153,000 hectares of lands are cultivated with wheat, of which over 85,000 hectares have been cultivated in cluster farming in the regional administration.
In the region, 128 thousand hectares of land are under maize cultivation, and more than 7.8 million quintals of this are expected to be produced. The current situation of maize cultivation in Halaba Zone is also a demonstration of the success of the region's maize cultivation, with more than 23 thousand hectares of land covered with maize seeds.
Oromia Agriculture Bureau on itself announced that it has been working extensively to expand cluster farming in pastoralists and lowland areas.
Stressing the need to expand cluster farming across the region, the bureau said that since it has high potential for the cultivation of wheat, maize and other crops it is mandatory to expand the cluster farming to tap agricultural potential of the region.
BY TAMERU REGASA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 29 AUGUST 2025
