Ethiopia: Abiy Ahmed’s agricultural revolution is too good to be true

Africa a new breadbasket—or so says Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister. Thanks to a state-led programme of agricultural modernisation the country, once a byword for famine, claims to have gone from importing around a quarter of its wheat to being self-sufficient and exporting a large surplus in the five years to 2023. Last year Ethiopia even grew as much wheat as Ukraine, an important grain exporter, according to official figures.

If these numbers were accurate, Mr Abiy’s wheat push could be a model for agricultural reform in Africa. Yet an analysis by The Economist of trade data and independent production estimates suggests that the wheat miracle is a mirage. Ethiopia grows more wheat than a few years ago, but nowhere near as much as Mr Abiy claims. That is not just bad news for the 129m Ethiopians he claims to be feeding. It also matters to countries hoping to emulate his drive and to the multilateral organisations who have praised it as an example of successful reform.

At the heart of the government’s strategy are “cluster farms”, where groups of smallholder farmers become shareholders in large, mechanised wheat farms. The idea is that by pooling resources they can purchase machinery and inputs that would otherwise be unaffordable, increasing yields. The government has waived taxes on imported machinery. It also provides fertiliser and heat-resistant seeds.

It has ordered a massive expansion of the amount of land on which wheat is cultivated, both by displacing other crops and by improving irrigation. In at least one district officials have been told to sow wheat on the grounds of airports, universities and government compounds. In this way, claims the prime minister’s office, Ethiopia produced 15.1m tonnes of wheat in the 2022-23 season, rising to an astonishing 23m tonnes the next year, making it the world’s ninth-biggest producer.

Foreign observers are impressed. Bill Gates has praised Mr Abiy for Ethiopia’s “amazing gains in agriculture”. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) last year awarded the prime minister its most prestigious award for “historic revolutionary change in agrifood systems”. Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), has said Ethiopia’s “incredible” progress shows that “Africa has what it takes to feed itself”.

But the AfDB does not endorse the Ethiopian government’s statistics. Based on “its own data and analysis from its in-country operations”, the bank estimates Ethiopia produced 7.5m tonnes of wheat in the 2023-24 season. (The Gates Foundation declined to comment.)

Nor do other external institutions back Mr Abiy’s numbers. America’s Department of Agriculture (USDA), which uses satellite imagery for its analysis, estimates that Ethiopia produced 5.8mn tonnes of wheat in 2022-23, a figure also used by the FAO. That is more than the 4.8mn tonnes it grew in 2017-18. But it is far from the 15.1m tonnes Mr Abiy has trumpeted.

The prime minister’s spokesperson says that the Ethiopian government “does not adopt or subscribe to” foreign estimates. There are limits to what outsiders can know without information from the government. The FAO says it last received data on wheat production from the Ethiopian Statistical Service (ESS) in 2021. (The ESS says there was no change in policy.)

Yet Ethiopia’s central bank also publishes an annual estimate of wheat production that relies on data from the ESS. Until it was removed from the bank’s website last month following enquiries by The Economist, that figure, too, was 5.8m tonnes for 2022-23.

The central bank and the planning ministry that oversees the ESS say that the now-deleted number was published by mistake. Fitsum Assefa, who heads the planning ministry, says she was unaware of the “human error” until The Economist approached the prime minister’s office, and insists that the ESS’s official estimate for wheat production that year is 15.1m tonnes. (An internal document subsequently shared with The Economist by the ESS puts it at 13.5m tonnes.)

In 2022, the year before Mr Abiy began touting his wheat miracle, he replaced the ESS’s technocratic director with a party cadre. Several people told The Economist that the reshuffle came after the agency expressed reservations about certifying over-optimistic estimates of wheat production. Beker Shale, the ESS’s director, denies political interference and says the service is professional and independent.

External trade estimates also cast doubt on the government’s statistics. Mr Abiy’s office claims that Ethiopia “completely ceased” wheat imports nearly four years ago. But private traders brought in some 400,000 tonnes in the first five months of 2024 alone, according to USDA, 57% more than in the same period in 2023. Imports for the year were 1.4m tonnes, compared with 150,000 tonnes of exports.

The government suggests the discrepancy may be due to aid agencies buying wheat from abroad instead of locally. But combine net imports with 23m tonnes of official domestic production, and either the government is building up a massive reserve or the average Ethiopian munched through some 187kg of wheat in 2024, nearly three times the global average. That seems particularly unlikely given that the country’s staple grain is not wheat but teff.

The self-sufficiency drive should also have reduced the need for food aid. Yet the UN’s World Food Programme says that 16m Ethiopians still needed such support in 2024. Mr Abiy said last year that his government had released more than $250m to stave off hunger.

Even if all questions about statistics are put to rest, there are reasons to doubt that Mr Abiy’s reforms are a model for Africa. The drive towards wheat monocropping risks worsening soil quality, which could reduce yields in the long run. Trying to force farmers to fulfil unrealistic production targets could trigger resistance of the kind that contributed to the fall of previous Ethiopian regimes. Mr Abiy’s grandiloquence could prove his undoing.

Tags: Ethiopia, estimates, breadbasket, self sufficient, Production, wheat, Africa