Ministry of Agriculture & Natural Resource in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Mechanization Sciences (CAAMS) has finalized a study to open an assembly unit for Teff planting and harvesting machinery by the coming year. The partnership aims at boosting crop production across the country. The Ministry has already tested four types of machinery for a year a combiner, thresher, seed planter and mini combiner in selected parts of the country in a project that cost a million dollars and was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The machines have increased and simplified Teff production, according to Iyasu Abreha (PhD), minister of Agriculture & Natural Resources.
The research also studied the opportunities for technology and knowledge transfer so that the farmers can operate the machines by themselves, according to him.
More than 40 million quintals of Teff is harvested annually for half of the Ethiopian populace, amounting to 50 million, who consume it as a staple food.
“One of the bottlenecks of the crop is not variety but the technology,” reflected Iyasu.
[addisfortune.net]