Review on opportunity, problems and production status of vegetables in ethiopia: A graduate senior seminar paper

Vegetables provide an abundant and inexpensive source of energy, body-building nutrients, vitamins and minerals. This review paper was aimed to recognize opportunities, constraints and potentials in Ethiopia for production of vegetables. Major opportunities and potentials existing in the country for production of vegetables were reviewed and described. Policies and incentives of the government to attract both foreign and domestic investors engaged in vegetable production were found to be attractive. Ethiopia has a comparative advantage in production of horticultural commodities on account its favorable climate, proximity to European and Middle Eastern markets and cheap labor. low-cost, disciplined and trainable Labor force and the size of its domestic market and the numerous river basins affording great potential for irrigation. The status of vegetable production including indigenous one and consumption in the country yet need further improvement. Recently, despite of the ups and downs observed, the demand for vegetables especially for export is increasing. In general, the drawback to this sector in Ethiopia mainly include social and cultural habits of the population like cereal based food habit, dietary preferences for meat and other animal products, and distaste for vegetable crops, lack of consumer awareness, economic reasons of the local consumers, absence of nutrition intervention programme using vegetables. However, due to perishable nature and biological nature of vegetables production process, vegetables productions are risky investment activities. The constraints of horticultural production including vegetables production could be Categorized in to Farmer related, institutional, natural and infrastructure related factors.