PEDA advocacy booklet : projections for Ethiopia

Abstract

Over the last couple of decades, Ethiopia has been the subject of many headlines reporting recurrent war and famine. Although the latter is often caused by factors that cannot be modeled by the Population, Environment, Development and Agriculture (PEDA) Model, it is capable of illustrating the fragile equilibrium between population growth, environmental stress and the performance of the agricultural sector that serves as the context wherein these tragedies take place. In these situations, there are often only slight disturbances caused by a period of reduced rainfall or isolation resulting from conflicts or a malfunctioning distribution system that lead to acute food-security problems. In the case of Ethiopia, they have occasionally grown to catastrophic proportions.