The Protein Sovereignty Index

Country assessment

Ethiopia

We assess Ethiopia as Dependent (41.1). The country grows roughly nine tenths of the protein it eats and owns Africa's largest cattle herd, 71.9 million head, yet that herd delivers 6.9 grams of animal protein per person per day, among the lowest figures recorded anywhere.[1][2] The binding constraints are affordability and endurance rather than production, and a resource base that expands faster on paper than it is actually watered: 70.9 per cent of Ethiopians cannot afford a healthy diet, the system meant to close that gap runs on imported fertiliser, one port corridor, a defaulted Eurobond and a defunded humanitarian pipeline, and the country's reported irrigation infrastructure has not grown since 2016 even as cropland expanded, with more than 10 million people facing hunger in an ordinary year.[29][14][12][36][19]

The protein system

Ethiopia feeds about 135.5 million people and adds roughly 3.4 million more each year.[3] Total protein supply of 79.9 grams per person per day nominally exceeds requirement.[1] The composition undoes the headline: 72.94 grams are plant protein against 6.93 grams animal, a plant share of 91 per cent.[1] Total meat supply is 6.9 kg per person per year, comprising beef at 3.35 kg, sheep and goat at 2.05 kg and poultry at 0.50 kg.[1] Protein sovereignty here turns on quality and reliability; tonnage is the part the country already has.

The crop base carries the diet. Corn production is forecast at 10.2 million tonnes for MY2025/26, wheat at 6.5 million and barley at 2.4 million, alongside teff and roughly 2.5 million tonnes of pulses a year.[6][7] Only 15 to 20 per cent of corn consumption goes to feed, seed and industrial use, so almost the entire grain harvest reaches human mouths directly.[6] The livestock sector is enormous in headcount and small in output: 237.7 million animals, of which 30 per cent cattle, 24 per cent chickens, 22 per cent goats and 18 per cent sheep, with pastoral cows yielding 1.5 litres of milk a day against up to 20 litres in commercial herds.[4] ILRI framed these subsectors as the principal untapped protein opportunity a decade ago.[5]

Trade is a thin margin around a large domestic base. Wheat imports forecast at about 1.4 million tonnes for MY2025/26 sit against consumption of 7.9 million, and USDA put MY2024/25 imports at 1.58 million tonnes once informal cross-border trade of around 330,000 tonnes is counted.[6][7] Formal corn imports are zero.[6] The dependencies that matter are narrow and deep: domestic production covers only about 12 per cent of vegetable oil supply,[1] and around 95 per cent of Ethiopian trade by volume crosses one land corridor to Djibouti and out past Bab el-Mandeb.[12]

Durable domestic capacity: 50

Quantitative score 55, adjusted down 5 points

Ethiopia passes the volume test and fails the durability test. Production of the four main grains plus pulses covers most consumption, and national supply of 79.9 grams per day clears requirement on paper.[1][6] Aggregate adequacy nonetheless coexists with more than 10 million people facing hunger and malnutrition in a year without a novel shock.[19] A system that is nominally sufficient and routinely produces emergency caseloads is not a durable one.

Two facts hold the indicators at 55 rather than higher. Animal protein of 6.93 grams per day leaves almost no buffer of the flexible, high-quality kind, and the largest cattle herd on the continent functions as a store of wealth and draught power more than as a food system.[1][2][4] Output is also regionally concentrated in the places where the state's writ is contested.

We apply a -5 adjustment for active conflict degrading nominal capacity. USDA reports persistent conflict in the main corn-producing regions of Oromia and Amhara disrupting fertiliser distribution, labour mobility and market access.[6] The Tigray war destroyed roughly 2.49 million cattle and ETB 53.56 billion, about USD 1.01 billion, of animal and veterinary sector value, more than 3 per cent of the national herd in a single episode.[27] FEWS NET projects Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes in the East Hararghe lowlands beginning in early 2026, with Crisis (Phase 3) outcomes over the same window in lowland Amhara and Tigray.[21] USDA's forecasts describe capacity that conflict is actively subtracting.

Resource headroom: 35

Quantitative score 40, adjusted down 5 points

Headroom is contradictory here, and the realisability evidence pulls the score down. The Ethiopian protein mix is about as feed-extensive as any on earth: ruminants graze natural pasture and crop residues, only 15 to 20 per cent of corn is diverted to feed, and the diet is plant-led, so each additional gram of protein draws lightly on grain.[1][6] Countries whose protein arrives through industrial feed conversion face a far larger arithmetic problem when grain prices move.

Against that, the herd has already outrun its feed base. FAO's national feed inventory, adjusted for competing uses of crop residues, puts the deficit at 21.6 per cent of dry matter, 51.7 per cent of metabolisable energy and 48.2 per cent of crude protein.[8] Existing animals are chronically underfed, the mechanical explanation for the 1.5 litre milk yield.[4] Water is tightening too: renewable internal freshwater has fallen to 973 cubic metres per person, below the conventional 1,000 cubic metre scarcity line, and falls with every year of population growth.[9][3]

The land base has genuinely expanded, but not the water on it. Cropland grew 76 per cent and arable land 67 per cent between 2000 and 2024, yet cropland per person fell 12.5 per cent over the same period as population growth outran the expansion.[39] Irrigation, the channel that would turn spare land into spare protein, has not kept up: land equipped for irrigation covers 5.2 per cent of arable land and has not been revised upward in Ethiopia's own reporting since 2016, and the officially reported area actually irrigated fell from 788,650 hectares in 2018 to 181,395 hectares in 2020 and has been carried forward near 165,540 hectares since, about a fifth of the nominal equipped stock.[39] The government's own claim of up to 4.27 million hectares of irrigated wheat by 2024/25 runs several multiples ahead of that reported infrastructure.[41] Agricultural credit for the sector is thin but real and rising, an orientation index of 0.161 against a parity of 1.00 in 2024, roughly double its 2020 level.[40]

The real headroom is therefore the yield gap rather than the frontier. Closing part of the distance between 1.5 and 20 litres per cow per day would deliver more protein than any expansion of animal numbers, which the feed balance cannot support.[4][8] Large-scale land acquisitions of the previous decade, concentrated in the western lowlands, illustrate both the land available and a poor record of converting it into national protein: about 1.9 million hectares transacted and 1.6 million hectares under contract, roughly a third of it to domestic investors, some 80 per cent of it in Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and lowland SNNPR.[10] The country's flagship irrigation-fed expansion project tells the same story at greater cost: Omo Kuraz, launched in 2011 in the lower Omo valley, had its planned cane area cut by 75,000 hectares to a 100,000-hectare target across four factories, and more than a decade later one of those factories cultivated 4,600.5 hectares in its 2024 season, a fraction of the reduced target, on financing exceeding USD 4 billion.[42][43][44]

Import exposure: 55

Quantitative score 60, adjusted down 5 points

By ratio, Ethiopia is close to import-independent for protein. Wheat imports cover roughly 17 per cent of wheat consumption, and wheat is itself the third grain behind corn and teff, so the share of national protein arriving by ship is small.[7] That holds the indicators at 60.

The exposure lies in what the imports are, who supplies them and how they arrive. Russia supplied 80.3 per cent of wheat grain imports in MY2023/24, 650,955 of 810,240 tonnes, single-origin concentration on a commodity with a history of politicised export controls.[6] Sorghum imports, revised down to 90,000 tonnes for MY2025/26 from an earlier 200,000-tonne forecast, remain dominated by US-sourced food aid, making a food-security input contingent on another government's appropriations.[6][7] Domestic vegetable oil production covers only about 12 per cent of supply, and the balance arrives overwhelmingly as palm oil from two Asian suppliers.[1][11]

Above all, there is one door. Around 95 per cent of Ethiopian trade moves through Djibouti and the Bab el-Mandeb strait at roughly USD 1.5 billion a year in port fees, and landlocked Ethiopia has no substitute at scale.[12] The chokepoint has already been tested: since November 2023, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping have almost tripled freight costs on Ethiopian trade and more than doubled transit times.[13] We apply -5 for an observed corridor failure a ratio-based score cannot capture.

Upstream dependence: 45

Quantitative score 40, adjusted up 5 points

Upstream dependence splits down the middle of the food system. The livestock half is close to input-autonomous: indigenous genetics improved through a domestic artificial insemination programme that produced about 2 million improved-breed calves in FY2024/25, feed drawn from grazing and crop residues, and no meaningful reliance on imported breeding stock or compound feed.[18][4] That is a genuine sovereignty asset, though the same reliance on grazed feed leaves the national ration 48.2 per cent short of crude protein requirement.[8]

The crop half, which supplies 91 per cent of national protein, depends entirely on imported mineral fertiliser procured through a single state channel.[1] The government approved USD 1.3 billion for 2.5 million tonnes of urea and DAP for 2024/25 through the Ethiopian Agricultural Businesses Corporation.[14] Delivery reliably falls short: Argus assessed that of 1.16 million tonnes of DAP awarded in 2024/25 tenders, only about 750,000 tonnes were likely to arrive in time.[15] A monopsony buyer, a foreign exchange constraint and a fixed planting calendar combine badly. Fuel is imported too, and the fertiliser-intensive wheat drive deepens precisely this dependence.

We apply +5 for a funded near-term structural shift. The Dangote-Ethiopian Investment Holdings urea complex at Gode rests on a USD 2.5 billion shareholders' agreement signed in August 2025, split 60/40, with 3 million tonnes a year of capacity fed by domestic Calub and Hilala gas.[16] Construction was launched on 5 October 2025 on a 40-month build.[17] If delivered it converts Ethiopia's largest imported agricultural input into a domestic surplus. The adjustment is modest because first production is years away.

Access and affordability: 19

Quantitative score 22, adjusted down 3 points

FAOSTAT's Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet series puts 70.9 per cent of Ethiopians, 93.6 million people, unable to afford a healthy diet in 2024, on a diet costing 114.39 birr, about Int$ 4.67 at purchasing power parity, per person per day; the 2025 reading, the last year in the July 2026 release, is 67.9 per cent, or 92.0 million people, and no year since 2017 has fallen below 65 per cent.[29] Either year places Ethiopia in the 65 to 85 per cent unaffordability band worth 15 to 32 points before the remaining indicators are weighed. Position within the band therefore rests on the remaining four indicators, which leave Ethiopia at 22. Undernourishment is the one comparatively favourable reading, at 19.9 per cent, 26.3 million people on a 2023-25 average, below the Eastern African figure of 25.8 per cent and the sub-Saharan African figure of 22.3 per cent.[30] Child stunting, at 35.5 per cent of children under five, is the 14th highest of the 162 countries carrying a 2024 estimate, short of the worst rates recorded (Burundi, 55.3 per cent) and falling only slowly from 56.9 per cent in 2000.[32] Domestic food price inflation has been structurally violent, spiking above 40 per cent in 2021 and above 30 per cent in both 2022 and 2023 before easing to 10.0 per cent in 2025.[31] Physical access is thin: only 21.6 per cent of the rural population lives within 2 kilometres of an all-season road, compounding conflict in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray and the single Djibouti corridor carrying nearly all food imports.[33][6][12]

We deduct 3 points because the safety net meant to bridge this gap is itself failing in real time, taking the pillar from 22 to 19. The USD 222 million WFP funding shortfall cut rations to 60 to 80 per cent in 2025 and threatens assistance to 2.6 million people through 2026, a documented deterioration the lagging national averages do not yet capture.[19][20] The indicators already price the price-volatility and physical-access components at their weakest on the conflict and corridor evidence, so the deduction covers only what those indicators cannot reach: the forward-looking ration cut and the projected Phase 4 outcomes.

Shock endurance: 30

Quantitative score 30, no adjustment applied

Endurance sets the tier, and it sits in the severe band. The strategic reserve is not a serious buffer: the Ethiopian Food Security Reserve Administration was designed around roughly 400,000 tonnes, under three weeks of national wheat consumption alone, and is operated deliberately thin.[22][6] Gross international reserves have recovered from an annual average equivalent to under one month of import cover in 2022 to about USD 5.9 billion, just over two months, projected by the end of FY2025/26, while the birr moved from an annual average of 54.6 to the dollar in 2023 to 82.6 in 2024 and to about 155 by February 2026, having lost roughly 107 per cent of its earlier value since the July 2024 float.[25][24][26][7] Two months of cover leaves minimal capacity to outbid other buyers on a tight market.

The shock absorber of last resort is therefore the international humanitarian system, and that system is failing. WFP faced a USD 222 million funding shortfall for April to September 2025 and cut rations to 80 per cent for displaced and severely food-insecure people and 60 per cent for refugees.[19][20] FEWS NET projects Emergency (Phase 4) outcomes in the East Hararghe lowlands beginning in early 2026 after below-average deyr rains, with Crisis (Phase 3) outcomes over February to May 2026 in lowland Waghimra and North Gonder in Amhara and in lowland Tigray.[21] The 2020-23 drought was the longest on record, and conflict continues in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray.[6][28] What keeps the score off the floor is dietary breadth across five staple grains and documented substitution, including blending sorghum for teff.[6]

Crisis purchasing power is weak on its two financial legs and sound on its social one. Ethiopia has no functioning access to international capital markets: its sole USD 1 billion Eurobond has been in default since December 2023, and an agreement in principle announced on 29 June 2026, struck with a committee holding about 45 per cent of the stock, would exchange it for USD 880 million of new bonds at 6.15 per cent, repaid in annual instalments to 15 July 2029, plus USD 99.375 million in three missed coupons and a consent fee.[36] It still awaits an exchange offer and final Official Creditor Committee approval, so market access remains closed today. Fiscal firepower is externally supplied rather than sovereign: the IMF's Extended Credit Facility disbursed about USD 464 million on completion of its fifth review in July 2026, the same review behind the USD 5.9 billion reserve projection.[24] Social protection is the component that holds. The Productive Safety Net Programme reached over 23 million people with shock-responsive support in its fifth phase, and a sixth phase approved on 3 March 2026 carries a USD 200 million World Bank credit within a total project cost of about USD 2.375 billion, funding public-works income for 6 million people.[35][37] The qualification is measurement rather than design: World Bank ASPIRE data for Ethiopia is last populated for 2018, putting coverage at 22.2 per cent of the population and 30.0 per cent of the poorest quintile, a reasonable base rate but a stale one that cannot confirm current reach.[34] Crisis purchasing power scores 28, weak on its two financial legs and sound on its social one; reserves and market access dominate the component. The indicators put the pillar at 30.

Trajectory

Policy direction is more ambitious than at any point in decades, and the gap between announcement and delivery is the whole story. The wheat drive has raised production to a forecast 6.5 million tonnes, and the government claims self-sufficiency and exports, which USDA data contradicts with continued imports of 1.4 to 1.6 million tonnes.[6][7] The same gap runs through irrigation: claimed irrigated wheat area of up to 4.27 million hectares sits several multiples above the 858,160 hectares Ethiopia's own reporting records as nationally equipped, and Omo Kuraz, the largest irrigation-fed expansion project actually under construction, has delivered a small fraction of its already-reduced target after fifteen years.[39][41][42] The Gode urea complex is the most consequential item on the horizon, addressing the deepest upstream dependence with committed capital.[16][17] Livestock is being pushed towards export value: halal meat exports reached USD 120 million in the year to June 2025, and the Ministry of Agriculture reports USD 128.4 million from processed livestock exports in the fiscal year to July 2026, growth in earnings that has not raised domestic intake.[18][38]

What would shift Ethiopia's trajectory, in order of leverage. Feed first: closing the 48.2 per cent crude protein deficit would lift output from the existing herd without adding animals the land cannot carry.[8] Then irrigation actually built rather than claimed: a verified expansion of equipped area, reported through the same channel FAO uses rather than through press statements, would convert the country's growing but poorly watered cropland into real headroom.[39] Then affordability: a fully funded WFP pipeline and a period of single-digit food inflation would lift millions above the CoAHD threshold without any change to production, since 70.9 per cent of the population is already priced out of a healthy diet.[29][19] Then reserves: building EFSRA to a meaningful multiple of monthly consumption would convert a nominal institution into an actual buffer, and a completed Eurobond restructuring that restores market access would widen the fiscal room behind it.[22][36] Then corridors: any credible second route to the sea reduces a 95 per cent single-point exposure.[12] Then peace in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray, which would raise capacity, headroom, access and endurance at once.[6][27] The downside risks are equally legible: population growth of 3.4 million a year compounds every deficit; the humanitarian pipeline is contracting;[19] freshwater per head is below the scarcity line;[9] and a Red Sea escalation acts directly on the one corridor.[13]

Country notes

Ethiopia is a single member entity, so there are no member states to enumerate. Sub-national divergence warrants record.

Oromia and Amhara. The principal corn and wheat regions, and where conflict is disrupting fertiliser distribution, labour mobility and market access; the largest source of downside risk to production, with lowland Waghimra and North Gonder zones in Amhara flagged for Crisis (Phase 3) outcomes between February and May 2026.[6][21]

Tigray. The clearest demonstrated loss, roughly 2.49 million cattle and ETB 53.56 billion of animal and veterinary sector value destroyed, with conflict continuing.[27][6]

East Hararghe and the southern pastoral zones. The worst projected food security outcomes and the lowest animal productivity, at 1.5 litres of milk per cow per day.[21][4]

Somali region. Host to the Calub and Hilala gas fields and the Gode urea complex, placing the most peripheral region at the centre of upstream strategy.[16][17]

Gambella. Concentrates a large share of the country's large-scale land acquisitions, part of roughly 80 per cent of transacted and contracted hectares recorded in Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and lowland SNNPR combined; conversion of these holdings into national protein output remains poorly documented.[10]

Addis Ababa and its commercial belt. Concentrates the poultry and dairy capacity reaching 20 litres per cow per day, the benchmark the national average is measured against.[4][5]

Sources

  1. Food Balance Sheets, Ethiopia (data, Africa): protein supply, meat supply, cereal and vegetable oil balances · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2023))
  2. Production: Crops and Livestock Products, Ethiopia (data, Africa): cattle stocks and pulses production · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2024))
  3. Population, total, Ethiopia (SP.POP.TOTL) · World Bank World Development Indicators (2026 (data 2025))
  4. Ethiopia country profile: livestock and enteric methane · FAO (2024 (2013 baseline data))
  5. Ethiopia sets out the futures for its growing poultry, dairy and meat subsectors · ILRI (2018 (2013 baseline data))
  6. Grain and Feed Annual, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (ET2025-0011), 7 May 2025 · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2025)
  7. Grain and Feed Annual, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (ET2026-0002), 1 April 2026 · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2026)
  8. Feed inventory and feed balance of Ethiopia: salient findings and way forward · FAO, reported in Feedipedia Broadening Horizons (2019 (2018 inventory))
  9. Renewable internal freshwater resources per capita, Ethiopia (ER.H2O.INTR.PC) · World Bank World Development Indicators (2025 (data 2022))
  10. Muir, C. S., R. Khatami and J. Southworth, Large-scale land acquisitions and land cover change in Ethiopia, Ecology and Society 30(3):17 · Ecology and Society (peer-reviewed) (2025)
  11. Ethiopia reported imports of palm oil (HS 1511) by partner, 2023 · UN Comtrade (2025 (data 2023))
  12. The Other Side of the Strait: the strategic significance of the Houthis' aggression for East Africa, 6 March 2024 · Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School (2024)
  13. Ethiopian Agricultural Exports Thrive Despite the Red Sea Shipping Disruption (ET2024-0013), 9 July 2024 · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2024)
  14. Gov't approves US$1.3B for 25M quintals of soil fertilizer procurement, 2 September 2024 · Fana Media Corporation (reporting EABC) (2024)
  15. Ethiopia's EABC still needs up to 400,000t DAP in 2025, 9 May 2025 · Argus Media (2025)
  16. EIH and Dangote Group sign shareholders' agreement for $2.5 billion, 3 million MT urea complex in Gode, 28 August 2025 · Ethiopian Investment Holdings (2025)
  17. Dangote Group breaks ground on landmark Gode fertilizer complex, 7 October 2025 · Afriqom (2025)
  18. Ethiopia's halal meat exports surge to $120 million, driven by Gulf demand, 5 August 2025 (reporting Ethiopian Institute of Animal Development) · Addis Insight (2025)
  19. WFP warns of rising hunger and malnutrition in Ethiopia as humanitarian needs outpace resources, 22 April 2025 · World Food Programme (2025)
  20. Ethiopia emergency · World Food Programme (2026)
  21. Ethiopia Food Security Outlook Update, December 2025 · FEWS NET (2025)
  22. Rashid, S. and S. Lemma, Strategic grain reserves in Ethiopia: institutional design and operational performance, Discussion Paper 01054 · IFPRI (2011)
  23. IMF Executive Board completes the fifth review under the Extended Credit Facility arrangement for Ethiopia, Press Release 26/235, 1 July 2026 · International Monetary Fund (2026)
  24. IMF expects Ethiopia's foreign exchange reserves to near USD 6 billion as reform program advances, 16 July 2026 (accessible report of the fifth ECF review) · 2merkato (2026)
  25. Total reserves in months of imports, Ethiopia (FI.RES.TOTL.MO) · World Bank World Development Indicators (2025 (data 2024))
  26. Official exchange rate, LCU per US$, period average, Ethiopia (PA.NUS.FCRF) · World Bank World Development Indicators (2025 (data 2024))
  27. Tedla, M. G., K. F. Berhe and K. M. Grmay, The impact of armed conflict on animal well-being and welfare, and analyzing damage assessment on the veterinary sector: the case of Ethiopia's Tigray region, Heliyon 9(12):e22681 · Heliyon (Elsevier), peer-reviewed (2023)
  28. Horn of Africa Drought Regional Humanitarian Overview and Call to Action, revised 26 May 2023 · UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2023)
  29. Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), Ethiopia (data, Normalized): prevalence of unaffordability, number of people unable to afford, cost of a healthy diet, items 7005/7006/70040/70041; the Indonesian comparator readings are taken from the same data · FAOSTAT (2026 release (data 2017-2025))
  30. Food Security and Nutrition: Suite of Food Security Indicators, Ethiopia (data, Normalized): prevalence and number of undernourished, items 210041/210011 · FAOSTAT (2026 release (data 2004-2025))
  31. Prices: Consumer Price Indices, Ethiopia (data, Normalized): food price inflation, item 23014 · FAOSTAT (2026 release (data 2006-2025))
  32. Prevalence of stunting in children under 5, Ethiopia (indicator NUTSTUNTINGPREV), sourced from the UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Group Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates · WHO Global Health Observatory (2025 edition (data 2000-2024))
  33. What Studies in Spatial Development Show in Ethiopia - Part II (Rural Access Index), 21 September 2017 · World Bank (Africa Can blog) (2017 (data 2016))
  34. Coverage of social protection and labor programs (per_allsp.cov_pop_tot) and coverage of social safety net programs in poorest quintile (per_sa_allsa.cov_q1_tot), Ethiopia · World Bank ASPIRE / World Development Indicators (2018 (most recent available))
  35. Ethiopia: A New Phase of Support for Safety Nets will Foster Resilience and Create Pathways to Decent Jobs, 3 March 2026 · World Bank (2026)
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  37. Productive Safety Net Project 6, Ethiopia (P511478): board approval 3 March 2026, IDA commitment USD 200 million, total project cost USD 2.375 billion · World Bank projects database (2026)
  38. Ethiopia earns 128 mln USD from annual livestock exports despite Middle East instability (reporting the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture), 21 July 2026 · Xinhua (2026)
  39. Inputs: Land Use, Ethiopia (data, Africa): arable land, cropland, land area equipped for irrigation, cropland area actually irrigated · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2000-2024))
  40. Investment: Credit to Agriculture, Ethiopia (data, Africa): agriculture orientation index and share of total credit · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2010-2024))
  41. Wheat self-sufficiency: How Ethiopia's 'risk' paid off · TRT Afrika (2025)
  42. Why Ethiopia's showcase sugar projects face huge challenges · The Conversation (2019)
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  44. Ethiopia: Omo Kuraz No. 3 Commences Sugar Production · 2merkato (2024)

What we could not measure

Ethiopia's government claims up to 4.27 million hectares of wheat under irrigation by 2024/25, a figure far beyond the national irrigation stock on record, just 858,160 hectares equipped for all crops and only 165,540 hectares actually irrigated; the gap is unresolved. The strategic grain reserve has no current disclosed stock level, and the figures used here rest on a 2011 study. The rural road-access reading, at 21.6 per cent of the population within reach of an all-season road, dates to 2016.

Published August 2026 ·How scores are produced