Problem+and+Background+Information

The foundation of the Ethiopia’s economy is agriculture. Accounting for over 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 80 percent of exports, and 80 percent of the labor force. Agriculture in Ethiopia is considered to be the most important sector of the economy.

 Ethiopia has extensive fertile land areas along with diverse climate and large labor force. Even with all this prospective, Ethiopia’s agriculture remains underdeveloped due to the periodic drought, soil degradation and poor economic base such as weak infrastructure and low technology. Ethiopia has low level of technology due to the farmers’ resistant forwards the new agricultural technologies. The loosening of government regulations towards agricultural goods such as free movement of goods, lift of price controls are placed to provide farmers with security is just another endeavor for Ethiopia to reach its agricultural potential.

 Pre-scaling up activities are carried out throughout the country with purpose to cover crop potential areas with better technologies, ensuring quality of products, and introducing farmers with new agricultural technologies. Ethiopian farmers are now fully aware about the importance of new technologies after viewing the significant changes on lives of farmers using new technologies. (Ethiopian Institute Of Agricultural Research, 2011)