A book entitled ‘The Quest for Change,’ Ethiopia’s Agriculture and Pastoral Policies and Strategies and Institutions by Demese Chanyalew was launched during a seminar held at the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute. The book focuses on the perception of agriculture as well as policies and strategies that are being implemented as well as agricultural modernization and commercialization. “Nowadays when we say agriculture, it seems that we are only focusing on crop farming, we almost take out livestock raising out of the equation. We have to see it in a different way; agriculture includes both crop and livestock as well as market linkages,” said Demese Chanyalew, author of the book. The book tries to look at how the agriculture sector could be best understood, which is a complex network of farms on the ground along with agro processing, agri business and market linkages for both crop and livestock. “The book also looks at indigenous policies, meaning locally developed polices that have not been corrupted by foreign influences. Unless African countries form and implement their own agricultural policy and strategy, they will not grow. We don’t need to import polices from abroad, we need to look at what works for us,” Demese also said. The author underlined that one of the contributors to Ethiopia’s growth has been policy development and strategies coming from within. “This is what we have been doing, and we have been reaching for when it comes to growth, it’s because we have been thinking from within,” he also said.
[capitalethiopia.com]