The protein system
Ethiopia's 135.5 million people receive 79.9 grams of protein per day, but only 6.93 grams come from animals; 91 per cent is plant protein.[1, 3] Meat supply is 6.9 kg per person annually, mostly beef and sheep or goat.[1] The central challenge is turning large crop and livestock numbers into reliable, nutritious food.
Corn output is forecast at 10.2 million tonnes in , alongside 6.5 million tonnes of wheat, 2.4 million of barley and about 2.5 million tonnes of pulses.[6, 7] Only 15–20 per cent of corn goes to feed, seed or industry.[6] The livestock herd is large,[2, 4] but pastoral cows yield just 1.5 litres of milk daily against up to 20 litres in commercial herds.[4]
Wheat imports of about 1.4 million tonnes are forecast against 7.9 million tonnes of consumption in MY2025/26, while formal corn imports are zero.[6, 7] Vegetable oil is a major exception: domestic production covers only about 12 per cent of supply.[1] Around 95 per cent of trade by volume also depends on the Djibouti corridor and Bab el-Mandeb.[12]
Durable domestic capacity:
Ethiopia grows most of its own grain, with corn output forecast at 10.2 million tonnes and wheat at 6.5 million tonnes in 2025–26.[6, 7] Its large livestock herd offers another source of food and farm income.[2, 4] Yet animal protein available per person is only 6.93 grams a day, and pastoral cows yield about 1.5 litres of milk daily.[1, 4] The size of the herd therefore overstates what it currently contributes to diets.
Feed quality is a central limit: the national livestock ration has a 48.2 per cent shortfall in crude protein.[8] Conflict also interrupts planting, trade and access to food, so large harvests cannot reliably protect every household.[19] More than 10 million people face hunger in an ordinary year.[19] Ethiopia has the land and animals to produce more nutritious food, but raising productivity and getting food to households matter more than simply adding livestock.
Resource headroom:
Ethiopia's plant-led diet and grazing livestock use little grain as feed: only 15–20 per cent of corn is diverted from food.[1, 6] The constraint is less competition for grain than inadequate feed quality, water, finance and security.
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] Animals are chronically underfed, which is why cows yield only 1.5 litres of milk a day.[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]
Cropland grew 76 per cent and arable land 67 per cent from 2000 to 2024, but cropland per person fell 12.5 per cent.[39] Irrigation equips only 5.2 per cent of arable land; irrigated area was about 165,540 hectares after 2020.[39] Farms get little credit: their share of bank lending is about a sixth of their share of the economy.[40]
The best room for growth is higher yields, not a larger herd or new land. Raising pastoral milk productivity above 1.5 litres per cow per day would add protein without adding animals the feed base cannot support.[4, 8] Large land acquisitions have not reliably translated into national food output.[10] Omo Kuraz, launched in 2011 with a 100,000-hectare cane target after a 75,000-hectare reduction, had only 4,600.5 hectares in cultivation at one factory in 2024 despite more than USD 4 billion in financing.[42, 43, 44]
Import exposure:
Wheat imports cover about 17 per cent of consumption, but Russia supplied 80.3 per cent of wheat imports in MY2023/24.[6, 7] Sorghum imports rely on US food aid, while domestic vegetable oil production covers only 12 per cent of supply; most of the balance is imported palm oil.[1, 6, 11] Supplier concentration and aid dependence make these smaller flows consequential.
Above all, there is one route to the sea. 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 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] This single corridor leaves trade exposed when Red Sea shipping is disrupted.
Upstream dependence:
Cattle and sheep need almost nothing from abroad: indigenous genetics improved through a domestic artificial insemination programme that produced about 2 million improved-breed calves in , feed drawn from grazing and crop residues, and no meaningful reliance on imported breeding stock or compound feed.[18, 4] That is a real strength, though the same reliance on grazed feed leaves the national ration 48.2 per cent short of crude protein requirement.[8]
Crops, which supply 91 per cent of national protein, relies on mineral fertiliser, all of it imported 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 single state buyer, short foreign exchange and a fixed planting calendar combine badly. Fuel is imported too, and the push to grow more wheat, which needs a lot of fertiliser, deepens this dependence.
A funded project could change this, though not soon. 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. First production remains years away.
Access and affordability:
In 2025, 67.9 per cent of Ethiopians, or 92.0 million people, , following 70.9 per cent in 2024; no year since 2017 has fallen below 65 per cent.[29]
The other nutrition measures show why the affordability result is not the whole picture. averaged 19.9 per cent, or 26.3 million people, over 2023–25, below the Eastern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa averages.[30] remained 35.5 per cent in 2024, down slowly from 56.9 per cent in 2000.[32] Food inflation exceeded 30 per cent in both 2022 and 2023 before easing to 10.0 per cent in 2025.[31, 48]
Physical access is also limited. Only 21.6 per cent of the rural population lives within two kilometres of an all-season road; conflict in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray and the Djibouti corridor's role in nearly all trade add to the constraint.[33, 6, 12] WFP's USD 222 million funding shortfall cut rations to 60–80 per cent in 2025 and threatens assistance to 2.6 million people through 2026.[19, 20]
Domestic prices are partly insulated from world markets by distance, but that has not meant stable prices.[45, 46] Retail white maize in Diredawa rose 82.0 per cent between 2021 and 2023 while the birr-converted FAO cereals index rose 24.7 per cent.[47, 49] The official exchange rate moved from 43.73 birr per dollar in 2021 to 82.60 in 2024, and the parallel-market premium remained in the high teens at end-2025.[26, 50] Local inflation, currency pressure and poor transport therefore remain central to what households can afford.
Shock endurance:
Ethiopia has little financial or stored-food capacity to absorb a harvest shock. 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 reserves recovered from under one month of in 2022 to a projected USD 5.9 billion, just over two months, by the end of FY2025/26.[25, 24] The birr fell from an annual average of 54.6 per dollar in 2023 to 82.6 in 2024 and about 155 by February 2026, losing nearly two-thirds of its value since the July 2024 float.[26, 7] Two months of cover leaves little capacity to outbid other buyers.
Humanitarian aid is the backstop, but it is underfunded. WFP faced a USD 222 million shortfall in April–September 2025, cutting rations to 80 per cent for displaced and severely food-insecure people and 60 per cent for refugees.[19, 20] FEWS NET projected Emergency conditions in East Hararghe and Crisis conditions in parts of Amhara and Tigray in 2026.[21] The 2020–23 drought was the longest on record, and conflict persists in several regions.[6, 28]
Ethiopia remains shut out of international capital markets after defaulting on its USD 1 billion Eurobond in December 2023. A June 2026 agreement in principle would exchange it for USD 880 million in new bonds and pay missed coupons, but still awaited final approval.[36]
Most of Ethiopia's money for a crisis comes from outside. The IMF's Extended Credit Facility disbursed about USD 464 million after its fifth review in July 2026, the same review behind the USD 5.9 billion reserve projection.[23, 24]
The Productive Safety Net Programme reached over 23 million people in its fifth phase. Its sixth phase, approved in March 2026, includes USD 200 million in World Bank financing and public-works income for 6 million people.[35, 37] In 2018, the programme reached 22.2 per cent of the population and 30.0 per cent of the poorest quintile.[34]
Trajectory
Policy ambition is rising, while delivery remains uneven. Wheat output is forecast at 6.5 million tonnes, yet USDA still expects 1.4–1.6 million tonnes of imports.[6, 7] The Gode urea complex is the most consequential project underway; if completed, it would replace imported fertiliser with domestic production.[16, 17] Livestock export earnings are growing, but this has not yet raised domestic intake.[18, 38]
Better feed, working irrigation and affordable food would help most in the near term. A funded humanitarian pipeline and sustained lower inflation could improve household access before production changes.[19, 29]
Stronger reserves,[6, 22] restored market access,[36] a second route to the sea[12] and peace in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray[27] would reduce several vulnerabilities at once. Population growth, a shrinking aid pipeline, scarce water and renewed Red Sea disruption remain the main downside risks.[9, 13, 19]
Country notes
Conditions also vary sharply within Ethiopia:
Oromia and Amhara. Conflict is disrupting fertiliser distribution, labour mobility and market access across the country's principal corn and wheat regions, 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 war cost 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, making it central to plans for domestic fertiliser.[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. Poultry and dairy capacity here reaches 20 litres per cow per day, the benchmark the national average is measured against.[4, 5]