Evaluating Marketing Opportunities for Haricot Beans in Ethiopia

The common bean, Phaseouts vulgaris, is an important crop in the provision of food security and as a commercial product in Ethiopia. In addition to the domestic markets, Ethiopia is supplying white beans into the export canning industry in European Union (EU) and other eastern European markets. In the past two to three years, Ethiopia has also been a major supplier of red beans into northern Kenya and this market has shown most rapid growth. There are three main haricot bean types grown in Ethiopia, based on colour red, speckled beans and white beans and within each colour type beans are further-sub-classified according to size classes; for example red beans are subdivided into small red, medium red and large red types. The red bean types are typically grown for food security by the poorer farmers in the southern Rift Valley areas of the country, whereas white beans are produced almost exclusively for the export market in central eastern Rift Valley. At present, virtually all bean production in Ethiopian is by smallholder farmers with minimal to zero inputs on plot sizes of up to 1.5 ha. With high population pressure, farm sizes are small and 56% of farming households farm less than one hectare.There are two seasons for bean production in Ethiopia, the short rains season (Belg) from March to May and the longer rains (Meher) season, June to August. Most farmers focus their efforts on the main season production and several farmers indicated that rainfall in the short season is too unreliable to invest in commercial bean production. The main marketing season is from September to January, with residual trading in February. The main production areas in the country are within the Rift Valley area, which runs diagonally across Ethiopia from top right to bottom left of the country. The two major bean producing regions are Oromia and southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region (SNNPR), which produce 70 and 60 thousand tones, respectively. These two regions make up 85% of the production. The inclusion of the Afar region brings the total production to 97%. For the most part, bean production zones are clearly defined, white beans being produced north of Lake Ziway and fred beans produced south of the lake. There are some pockets of white bean production in the southern Sidama area, but this is mainly for local consumption. Based on statistical date from Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Government of Ethiopia (GoE), bean production ranges from 100-200 thousand tones per year, with yields highly dependent upon rainfall. Average national