Ethiopia initiates 10 irrigation projects

Ten of 29 African Development Bank (ADB) sponsored irrigation projects costing US $70 million have been initiated in Ethiopia. The funding was a result of an agreement the Ethiopian government signed with the bank last year.

"The projects are being carried out with a view to ensuring the food security of pastoralists and farmers," said the Ethiopian Ministry for Agriculture, adding that the projects could result to the development of more than 2,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia.

The construction of the remaining irrigation projects is also said to be underway.

Dams supporting irrigation projects have been constructed in the states of Amhara, Tigray, Oromia and South Ethiopia Peoples State. Irrigation, water harvesting, crop marketing and integrated environmental conservation and capacity building works have been going on in the country since 2006.

In June this year, the World Bank approved a loan of US $100 million to help the country to increase agricultural productivity, accelerate growth and reduce rural poverty. The Ethiopia Irrigation and Drainage project - costing more than US $700 million - is the first in a series of Nile investments under preparation. The project represented the World Bank's first re-engagement in new irrigation development in the Nile Basin for about three decades.

This project aims to increase irrigated agricultural output in the Megech and Ribb schemes located in the Lake Tana sub-basin of the Blue Nile basin. The proposed program shares the same objectives with that of the ADB, although the World Bank sponsored project targets a total of 20,000 hectares, mostly cultivated by subsistence smallholder farmers that currently depend on unreliable rainfall.

Afrol