Ethiopia Crafts Digital Agriculture Roadmap

Ethiopia is embarking on an ambitious digital agriculture journey through a draft roadmap stretching across seven years. The roadmap developed over eight months in 2024 locks in on three main targets: solution areas and use cases, the Digital Stack, and an enabling environment.

Developed through the collaboration of the Agricultural Transformation Institute, the Ministry of Agriculture, and a diverse set of stakeholders, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided financial and strategic support in the development of the roadmap, with Agriculture Minister Girma Amente (PhD) chairing the steering committee responsible for setting up the strategic direction.

The document defines digital agriculture as “the use of technologies and integrated digital systems to enable farmers and stakeholders within the agricultural value chain." The roadmap lays down a two-phase implementation with “Building the Digital Foundation “for the first four years, subsequently followed by the “Diversifying and Scaling the Ecosystem" stage.

Mandefro Nigussie (PhD), CEO of ATI, indicated plans to roll out farmer registration using digital IDs to profile production, track market linkages, and determine input requirements. Agricultural inputs will be tracked from the moment they onboard Djibouti’s ports all the way up to the farmer, according to the CEO.

“7 million farmers are already accessing our advisory services,” he told Shega.

Mandefro expects thorough digitization across Ethiopia’s agriculture supply chain to improve the marketability of produce, instill quality standards, and upscale the efficient use of inputs. QR codes that help identify each farmer and his produce are part of the digital agriculture goals, according to the official.

In line with these ambitions, the Ministry has recently launched a data hub that aggregates research and documents on agriculture.

Some of the targets in the first phase of the roadmap include agricultural intelligence, which has to do with timely interventions for crops and livestock by tracking and monitoring disease outbreaks, weather events, and pest attacks. Improved financial access by sharing and collecting data for use by lenders and insurance packages is also envisioned in the roadmap.

One of the more ambitious targets includes building a digital stack with an interoperable data set supported by analytics to increase insight extraction. An ecosystem that enables the delivery of digital services to farmers, including APIs, consent mechanisms, and data standards while ensuring the availability of reliable and accessible data for use cases is laid out in the Roadmap.

While Ethiopia’s agriculture contributes nearly two-thirds to the country’s exports and about a third of GDP, it is increasingly facing a web of challenges. Soil acidity has been reported as high as 43% in the highest crop-producing regions (Amhara, Oromia, and the former SNNP).

One of the worst droughts in recent history caused by the El Nino phenomenon also occurred over the past few years. Despite significant strides in the procurement of fertilizer over the past two years, delivery has also been hampered by conflict in certain areas of the country. 

The combined effects of conflict, drought, and underproductivity contributed to the nearly 16 million Ethiopians needing food support in 2024 and around 55% of all children under the age of five being malnourished.

Agricultural researchers like Kedir Shifa expect a technology boost to Ethiopia’s agriculture to bring about significant gains as long as some preconditions are met. He indicates the need to ensure security alongside boosting productivity to have the maximum positive outcome.

“Fertilizer shortages, lack of irrigation, and market access also need to be addressed,” Kedir told Shega.