A history of partially mechanized and other arable farming along the Ethno-Sudan Border

The entry point of the book is 1950s because the Ethiopian government sought to stimulate agricultural growth and promote changes in peasant agriculture through its successive Five Year Development Plans (FYDP) that started in 1957.In order to advance in prosperity Ethiopia needs to increase commercialization of agriculture by supporting massive investments in irrigation, careful use of fertilizer and high-yielding varieties like the green revolution from the late 1960s that benefited countries like Mexico, India and the Philippines. This should go hand in hand with increasing power inputs, mainly in the form of tractors for land preparation and diesel engine for irrigation.Thus, development and modernization of Ethiopia's agriculture will depend to a large extent on the transformation of policies for education and entrepreneurship. It is argued that for sustainable agricultural growth to take place in the short to medium term there is the need to develop urgently mechanization policies or adjustments that will set Ethiopia's farmers on a sure and sustainable path to commercial farming.