Ethiopia’s ongoing agricultural reforms have strengthened the nation’s path toward food sovereignty and a $300 billion economic future, according to Mandefro Nigussie, Director-General of the Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI).
Speaking at a consultation forum in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, 1 April 2026, Nigussie stated how the ATI is to modernise the sector by placing smallholder farmers at the centre of a market-led strategy.
By integrating a 2030 Digital Agriculture Roadmap and expanding cluster farming to cover 50% of the country’s farmland, the government sought to transform rural productivity into a primary driver of industrial growth and national pride.
A major pillar of this transformation has been the explosive growth of cluster farming. Farmland under this management system expanded from 0.6 million hectares in 2019 to 12.3 million hectares in the 2024/25 period.
This shift contributed to a 56 per cent increase in overall agricultural production.
Nigussie noted that wheat production remains a key performance indicator of this success, as the country moves to substitute imports with domestic production of wheat, rice, and malt, and also integrate environmental sustainability with industrial growth.
Ethiopia implemented large-scale soil and natural resource conservation programs covering 33.6 million hectares. Furthermore, the digital roadmap is already being deployed across multiple projects to modernise the sector.
Nigussie stated, “The reform approach focuses on creating strong connections between agriculture, rural development, and industrial growth,” adding that training programs for youth are being strengthened to support these technical linkages.
Looking toward the future, the ATI lead expressed immense optimism regarding the scalability of these reforms.
He projected that the combined impact of current initiatives could enable Ethiopia to generate up to $300 billion in economic value and feed a population of 400 million over the next 15 years.
This ambitious trajectory is supported by ongoing livestock and crop development reforms designed to accelerate the sector’s modernisation.
He concluded that these achievements “demonstrate that Ethiopia’s comprehensive reform efforts across sectors are delivering tangible results and paving the way for sustained development.”
Source: ENA News
