Addis Ababa — Over the years, small-scale farmers growing white pea beans in Ethiopia have sold their produce through the informal market, relying largely on middlemen who dictate prices and walk away with huge profits, often leaving the farmers in poverty.

“When smallholders sell their produce individually, they are easily shortchanged by middlemen who give them very little money for their products, and they can hardly provide for their families despite their hard work on the farms,” Legesse Dadi, agricultural project manager for Catholic Relief Services in Ethiopia, told IRIN.

Some traders on the informal market are also more likely to tamper with weighing scales, which means farmers get even less money for their produce.

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In spite of an irregular rainy season, the mehar harvest (October to December) is expected to be above-average, leading to a stabilisation or slight decline of prices in the cereal market. The harvest is expected to have a positive impact on the market supply and staple food prices during the first quarter of 2013, with further declines in price later in the year, according to a report issued by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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Adag International Plc, a company engaged in the hotel business since 2006, is this week, opening a cereal, oil seed and spice processing plant in Adama, Oromia.

The construction of the factory, which rests on a 4,000sqm plot of land, started nine months ago with a capital of 15 million Br. Adag, owner of Adag Hotel in Wolenchiti, Oromia, 122Km west of Addis Abeba, leased the land for 28,000 Br. Local farmers that were moved from the site were also paid 22,800 Br in compensation, according to Haddis Ayele, manager and major shareholder of the company. The plant building sits on 1,750sqm of the total land.

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Out of the total 40 million pieces of hides required by the 27 leather factories in Ethiopia annually, only 23 million pieces is supplied by private skin collectors.

Ali Usman was only 15 years old when he started making money, going door to door slaughtering sheep and goats, flaying the skins and sorting the meat for customers. When he turned 18 years old he expanded into the business of buying skins, a job which he has kept up for the past 14 years.

This Christmas, around Kera, Ali was buying each sheepskin for 70 Br, each goat skin for 30 Br and each cattle skin, which can weigh up to 48Kgs, for 3.50 Br a kilo. Sheepskin, he says, is now cheaper, than the 90 Br it used to be in July, but cattle skin has increased from 2.50 Br. Goat skin, on the other hand, has stayed the same.

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Cotton supply falls short by tens of thousands of tonnes, as a result of market problems faced during the previous fiscal year.

The decrease in supply was disclosed during the general assembly of the Ethiopian Cotton Producers, Ginners and Exporters Association (ECPGEA), at the Sheraton Addis Hotel, on December 25, 2012. The meeting was attended by government officials, including; Tadesse Haile, state minister for the Ministry of Industry (MoI) and Wondirad Mandefro, state minister for the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).

Demand for the textile industry, in the 2012/13 fiscal year, is 60,000tn. Supply, however, is short by 23,000tn, according to government estimates. The Cotton Association, on the other hand, says that the shortfall is actually larger than the government estimated.

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