Challenges and Opportunities of Urban Agriculture in Major Towns Practicing Urban Agriculture in Ethiopia: A Review

Ethiopia is experiencing a surge in urbanization as well as an increase in the cost of living and food. Consequently, urban agriculture will play a significant part in the nation's adoption of a sustainable urban development program. Ethiopia's government has also shown a great deal of interest in advancing urban agriculture, as seen by the establishment of the Farmers and Urban Agriculture Commission. However, as the sector is considered as a new initiative in most cities it has its own challenge and opportunity. This study reviewed the challenges and opportunities of urban agriculture in Ethiopia. Existing scholarly research that has been published as journal articles serves as the study's methodology. The resources (Scopus and Google customized search), eligibility and exclusion criteria, review process phases, data abstraction, and analysis are all part of the methods used. The review result shows that, in Ethiopia, there is diversity among the actors involved in urban agriculture and the tasks they carry out. There are four major performers of urban agriculture namely farm households, organized groups/cooperatives/enterprises, households and institutional practitioners. The commonly practiced forms of urban agriculture are dairy, poultry, animal fattening, bee keeping, fish farming, and vegetable production. The major challenges the urban agriculture facing are Challenges due to limitation of resources, economic and climate change factors. Farmers that are practicing urban agriculture are facing problems with resources such as access to available land, access to water supply for irrigation and livestock, high price of fertilizer and pesticides. Farmers and other organized bodies to implement urban agriculture are facing problems with access to financial institutions lending money. Variability of climatic factors such as rainfall and temperature affect yield in crops. The best opportunity for urban agriculture in Ethiopia is that creation of A better market for products (milk, chicken and eggs) with close users in towns, provides employment opportunities for jobless youths and women in the towns and generates additional income for urban agricultural producers. It needs stronger policy support and investment to enhance the contribution of urban agriculture expansion significantly.