The State Minister for the Crop and Horticulture Development Sector at the Ministry of Agriculture of Ethiopia, Desalegn Teshale, said rice production of the country has increased from 1.8 million quintals in 2019/20 to 62.9 million quintals in 2024/25.
He made the remark at a discussions the Ministry held on the implementation of the rice development plan over the past two and a half years. He stated that since rice development was elevated to the level of a National Flagship Program, according to the informaation from the Miistry’s social media page.
He indicated that rice is one of the ten priority agricultural commodities identified under Ethiopia’s Ten-Year Agricultural Development Plan. He noted that significant achievements have been recorded in rice development as a result of the focused attention given to the sector following the national reform efforts. “For example, the area cultivated with rice during the main production season by smallholder farmers increased from 60,000 hectares in 2019/20 (2012 E.C.) to 1.7 million hectares in 2024/25 (2017 E.C.),” he said.
The State Minister further explained that rice production increased from 1.8 million quintals in 2019/20 to 62.9 million quintals in 2024/25.
He also stated that rice imports declined from 13.1 million quintals in 2019/20 to 4.4 million quintals in 2024/25, enabling the country to save approximately 442 million U.S. dollars in foreign currency.
The State Minister urged all stakeholders to continue working in coordination and fulfill their respective responsibilities in order to sustain and strengthen the remarkable progress achieved in rice development.
During the discussion forum, participants reviewed the successes achieved in rice development and held extensive discussions on the challenges that need to be addressed through collaboration among the government, the private sector, and other stakeholders in the future.
Ethiopia’s rice farms are primarily concentrated in seven major “rice hubs”: Fogera (Amhara), Gambella, Metema, Pawe (Benishangul Gumuz), Chewaka (Oromia), May-Tsebri (Tigray), and the Somali region. Originally a minor crop, rice is now officially recognized as a strategic “Millennium Crop”, driving massive food-security initiatives to replace imports with domestic production.
