13 1/2 hours on an Ethiopian Airlines flight and I finally arrived. That was a very long flight! It gave me lots of time to wrap up a few things for work and to further prepare myself for the next two weeks in Ethiopia working with dairy farmers.
Seeing the vast sprawling view of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as shown below, caused me to pause and think about how it is that everyone living here can have enough food to eat. (The reality is that the same can be said about every large city and most towns in the United States.)
But, lets focus on Addis Ababa and the 5.4 million people living there. Looking at their population trends, Addis Ababa has been growing by millions of people over the past several years and projected to grow by millions more over the next several years. In fact, it took 6 years from 2012 to 2018 to add 1 million more people. That decreased to 5 years and is projected to decrease to 4 and then 3 years to have additional millions more in Addis Ababa! This is like around 600-700 people every day in this city. I’m sure they all want to ensure they have enough food for themselves and their families. But can they?
According to research published a few years ago, “There is an immediate and growing shortage of dairy products in all major cities of Ethiopia…” So what is the answer? The researchers continued, “…the trends of economic prospects for dairy industry performance and development are rather good both at small holder and on more commercial levels. (However) There are different constraints affecting milk production potential of dairy cattle in most parts of Ethiopia including shortage of grazing land, disease and parasites, shortage of land for cultivation of improved forage, inadequate veterinary service, low milk production potential of local zebu cattle, inadequate Artificial Insemination (AI) service and labor shortage.” Dairy Production in Ethiopia – Existing Scenario and Constraints
One key part of the answer to address many of these constraints is improving overall dairy management practices on both small holder and larger commercial level herds in Ethiopia will be a major factor in ensuring sufficient food for the population of Addis Ababa and the rest of Ethiopia. I feel blessed to have this opportunity to work with Catholic Relief Services Farmer-to-Farmer Program to contribute a small part of the solution to this massive challenge.
One cow at a time... 