Wheat production and marketing in Ethiopia: Review study

The objective of the study was to review the status of wheat production and marketing in Ethiopia. The data are analyzed using graphs, figures, tables and narrations. Ethiopia shows remarkable economic growth, and the agricultural sector takes the highest contribution. Crops take the highest share in total production and area coverage which constituted on average 68% of the Ethiopian agricultural gross domestic product. Consequently, wheat is an important cereal crop which makes a significant contribution to the development of the agricultural sector in general and to the farm household food security status in particular. In Ethiopia, wheat production and productivity has shown increasing rate, especially from 2005 to 2017. This makes Ethiopia as one of the largest wheat producers in sub-Saharan countries. Even though it shows potential, wheat production and productivity is relatively small by global standards. The main reason is that mostly subsistence farming of wheat is produced by small-scale farmers through rain feed production system with less irrigated production. Additionally, existing wheat production and marketing system is exacerbated by constraints which have their own influence on decreasing yield of wheat. But, in opposite to the constraints, there are also important opportunities which motivate wheat production and marketing trends of farmers and traders. Finally, to bring wheat production and marketing development in Ethiopia, attention from responsible bodies on the expansion of infrastructure, awareness creation for wheat farmers through training on value-adding activities, intervention on the expansion of irrigable land and motivating large-scale farms have been suggested.