In Ethiopia, as in many other African countries, there is a pressing need to improve household food security. An emerging consensus suggests that this is most easily accomplished through two development strategies with two complementary dimensions: investments that facilitate income generation...

The quality, quantity, and composition of food consumption are major determinants of the nutritional well-being of individuals, which has, in turn, important implications for individual and household-level health, productivity, and income. An analysis of food consumption patterns is essential to...

Cereal is the single largest subsector of Ethiopia’s agriculture. It dominates in terms of its share in rural employment, agricultural land use, and calorie intake, as well as its contribution to national income. The subsector accounts for roughly 60 percent of rural employment, about 73...

The livestock sector is an important subsector of Ethiopia’s economy in terms of its contributions to both agricultural value-added and national gross domestic product (GDP). Between 1995/96 and 2005/06, the livestock subsector’s share averaged 24 percent of agricultural GDP and 11...

Ethiopia’s crop agriculture is complex, involving substantial variation in crops grown across the country’s different regions and ecologies. Five major cereals (teff, wheat, maize, sorghum, and barley) are the core of Ethiopia’s agriculture and food economy, accounting for...

Ethiopia’s economy has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Although growth in agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) from 1998 to 2007 was less rapid than in other parts of the economy, agriculture also performed well, growing faster than the rural population. However, poverty is...

Agrarian communities dependent on rainfall are vulnerable to production shortfalls due to drought and other climatic shocks. The human suffering caused by such shocks is often amplified due to deficiencies in market fundamentals, such as roads, information, and risk management institutions. This...

Over the past two decades, decisionmakers in Ethiopia have pursued a range of policies and investments to boost agricultural production and productivity, particularly with respect to the food staple crops that are critical to reducing poverty in the country. A central aim of this process has...

The Kingdom of Swaziland covers an area of 17,364 square kilometers bordered on the north, west, and south by the Republic of South Africa and on the east by Mozambique. The two major towns or cities are Mbabane, the capital city, and Manzini. The 2007 census put the population at 1.02 million,...

According to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Le Treut et al. 2007, 96), climate is defined as average weather over a period of time, ranging from months to millions of years. Climate is usually described in terms of the mean and variability...