Ethiopia Agricultural Equipment

Ethiopia’s abundant natural resources and fertile land support its massive agricultural production.  Despite this huge potential, Ethiopia is still a net importer of agricultural commodities. The government of Ethiopia has vowed to change this situation and has been investing hugely in the sector.

Small farmers are grouped together in clusters to collectively use agricultural machines to transform the traditional farming techniques and improve productivity. In the past four years, five thousand tractors were procured and distributed to these clusters and there is still a demand for another 5,000 tractors and 1,000 harvesters in the coming years. Ethiopia imports one million metric tons of wheat every year. The government of Ethiopia set a plan to replace wheat imports with local production by introducing irrigated farming techniques to harvest wheat twice a year. This will create great opportunities for U.S. irrigation equipment manufacturers to supply their technology to the Ethiopian agricultural sector.

A major campaign to increase fruit production, particularly avocado fruits, for export markets also positively impacts demand for equipment.. Currently, fruits and horticultural products are exported through air cargo, which makes it expensive. The plan is to shift to inland transport of agricultural commodities to the Djibouti port. This will require irrigation equipment and cold chain facilities both at warehouses as well as mobile cold chain facilities for inland transport that can be supplied by U.S. manufacturers.

There are also three integrated agro industrial processing parks that are already operational and a couple more will be constructed in the years to come. U.S. companies that can supply equipment and technology for food processing plants have great opportunity in the Ethiopian market.

Please reach out to Teddy Tefera at Tewodros.tefera@trade.gov for further enquiries.