Famine and Food Insecurity in Ethiopia By: Joachim von Braun and Tolulope Olofinbiyi CASE STUDY #7-4 OF THE PROGRAM: "FOOD POLICY FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN THE GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM" 2007 Edited by: Per Pinstrup-Andersen (
[email protected]) and Fuzhi Cheng Cornell University In collaboration with: Soren E. Frandsen, FOI, University of Copenhagen Arie Kuyvenhoven, Wageningen University Joachim von Braun, International Food Policy Research Institute Executive Summary Ethiopia, the second most populous country in macroeconomic policies. Second, market Sub-Saharan Africa, is home to about 75 million integration and price stabilization must be in place people. The country has a tropical monsoon for individual projects to function effectively. The climate characterized by wide topographic-induced question of policy and program choice and variations. With rainfall highly erratic, Ethiopia is sequencing arise in determining the optimal usually at a high risk for droughts as well as program mix for mitigating and preventing famine. intraseasonal dry spells. The majority of the But how is such a program mix determined under population depends on agriculture as the primary resource and time constraints? source of livelihood, and the sector is dominated by smallholder agriculture. These small farmers rely Your assignment is to recommend a set of short- on traditional technologies and produce primarily and long-term policies and programs to improve for consumption. food security in Ethiopia that will be compatible with available government resources and reductions Famine vulnerability is high in Ethiopia. With the of Ethiopia's dependence on foreign food aid. rapid population growth of the past two decades, per capita food grain production has declined.