[{"bbox": [96, 153, 1135, 240], "category": "Text", "text": "The enhancement of nutrition security and monitoring food prices seen as good nexus opportunity with ECHO interventions focusing on the urgent humanitarian responses including addressing acute malnutrition and post disaster recovery – rehabilitation actions."}, {"bbox": [85, 274, 341, 305], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2.2 Problem Analysis"}, {"bbox": [96, 322, 1135, 699], "category": "Text", "text": "Improved horticulture seeds are a crucial part of the food security and nutrition response for the rural population in Ethiopia, but they are in short supply due to structural issues related to market bottlenecks. In the last years the situation has been furthermore aggravated by conflict in several regions of the country and, more recently, by the farmers inability to meet the high cost of inputs due to the inflation and fertiliser shortage. Unlike cereal and pulse seeds, horticulture seeds in Ethiopia are produced mainly by the private sector but, similarly, not at a quantity that would ensure adequate levels of food security and nutrition of the most vulnerable food insecure population. Therefore, there is a need to complement current support provided to cereals and pulse seeds, produced mainly by the public sector, with support aimed at encouraging increased production by the private sector, particularly for horticultural seeds. There is also a need to reconstruct crucial infrastructure for seed production, certification and distribution in conflict affected areas as well as to establish a localized system of seeds supply to drought prone areas; in the future this will allow for more actors and larger buffers in seed stocks, in periods of instability and erratic climatic patterns, ensuring more resilience to future shocks."}, {"bbox": [96, 726, 1135, 1162], "category": "Text", "text": "This support needs to be complemented by a demand-driven soil fertility management system that caters to the needs of smallholder farmers both in terms of production but also in reducing unsustainable use of chemical fertilizer. Indeed, soil degradation, due to multiple factors including climate change and inappropriate farming practices acerbating wind and water erosion and acidification, is a major issue in Ethiopia and encompasses significant economic costs. The Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) estimates that Ethiopia lost $7 billion over the last decade from soil degradation. The Government of Ethiopia (GoE) invested heavily in increasing fertilizer uptake and promoting soil and water conservation activities, but the widespread use of chemical fertilizers is now recognised as having been an inappropriate development pathway and is in any case challenged by the doubling of prices. As a result, the GoE is therefore looking at more integrated ways of managing soil fertility, combining organic and inorganic fertilizers, and is exploring alternative sources of nutrients and amendments, and developing new practices to improve soil health and fertility, such as local waste streams and regenerative agriculture. The Action will support the GoE in the transformation towards an Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) approach through a combination of research, extension services, knowledge sharing and regulatory support."}, {"bbox": [96, 1189, 1135, 1393], "category": "Text", "text": "The livestock sector has been contributing substantially to the Ethiopia's economy: the country has the highest livestock population in Africa, contributes up to 20 % of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and between 35 to 49 % of the total agriculture GDP. Livestock is the core assets for rural communities in Ethiopia: it is a source of food (milk, meat, and eggs), hides and skins, draught power, fertilizer and fuel, cash and wealth accumulation (living bank). Livestock provides farmyard manure commonly applied to improve soil fertility, and a source of energy in the form of dung cake for tradition stove or as an input for biogas facilities."}, {"bbox": [96, 1420, 1135, 1624], "category": "Text", "text": "However, livestock-based livelihoods in Ethiopia are economically fragile due to climate vulnerability, particularly drought, degraded grazing areas, limited watering points and poor access to veterinary services, poor market information and market infrastructure, competitiveness of livestock products, and poor compliance with sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards. These factors combine to cause high rates of young stock mortality and morbidity, sub-optimal livestock productivity and offtake, which are exacerbated by an uncertain policy environment for livestock traders, producers, and private veterinary service providers to develop their businesses."}, {"bbox": [1130, 1655, 1144, 1677], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "6"}]