International Journal of Plant Breeding and Crop Science

Vol. 6(2), pp. 563-568, September, 2019. © www.premierpublishers.org, ISSN: 2167-0449

Research Article

Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia

*1Eyob Bezabeh and 2Baye Belay
1,2Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research P.O. Box 2003, Adis Ababa, Ethiopia
Lentils are among the major grain crops in Ethiopia that constituted the major food crops for the
majority of the country’s population. It also served as a source of income at household level and
a contributor for the country’s foreign currency earnings. The study was conducted to analyze
the trend of production and export of Lentils in Ethiopia. Secondary data on production and export
of the crop were used and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study identified that, the total
land area and the total volume of lentil production has increased at a compound growth rate of
4% and 9% respectively, while the productivity of the crop has shown a 5%compounded growth.
Ethiopia exports on average 2,339,693 kg of lentils and incurred birr 18,684,845. Pakistan and
United Arab Emirates are the highest recipients for Ethiopian lentils with a share of 20 % and 16
% respectively. Italy was the destination country from which highest value/kg (birr 25/kg) from
Lentils export is received. Therefore, it is important to give more attention to the crop in research
system so as to have more improved varieties and agronomic recommendations. On the other
hand, we need to export the crop and its product to those countries which have high Value to
volume ratio (VVR).

Keywords: Lentils, Value to volume ratio, Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION
By and large, agriculture in Ethiopia is subsistence. This is
predominantly true to the major food crops grown in the
country and lentils are one of these crops (Negussie T,
2004).In Ethiopia, the private peasant holders grow Lentils
primarily for the seed which has relatively higher contents
of protein; carbohydrate and calories compared to other
legumes and is the most desired crop because of its high
average protein content, fast cooking characteristics and
economic benefits (S.Kumer, S. Barpete, J.Kumar,
P.Gubta and A.Sarker, 2013).It provides important
economic advantages to the small scale farm households
in providing food, feed, cash income, soil improvement and
foreign currency earnings (Matny On, 2015; Daniel. A,
Firew M, and Asnake F, 2015).
On the other hand, lentils one of the heavily consumed
legumes crops in Ethiopia and is a popular ingredient of
every day diet in the majority of households. Besides being
rich in protein, the ability of crop to use atmospheric
nitrogen through biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is
economically appealing and environmentally friendly. It is
also well adapted to various soil types and also considered
as drought-resistant crop. It is widely grown in areas
having an altitude range of 1,700-2,400 meters above sea
level with annual rainfall ranging from 700-2,000 mm in
Ethiopia (David Karanja, 2016; Asnake F, 1996)
Lentils are grown in different volumes across the country.
Lentils grown in 2015/16 (2008 E.C.) covered 6.1%
(100,692.74 hectares) of the legumes crop area produced
by 68,6415 private peasant land holders and 5% (about
1,339,336.41 quintals) of the legumes production was
drawn from the lentil crop in Ethiopia. This is concentrated
in the Amhara and Oromia regions with 54% and 36%
producers, respectively, engaged in production. The two
regions account for 93% of the total area occupied by lentil
(CSA, 2016).
Studies revealed that, regardless of its importance, lentil
productivity is still very low in Ethiopia mainly due to little
attention by the research (Chilot Y, yigezu A and Aden A,
2016). The study was therefore generally intended at
engendering information about Lentil production trend in
the country and the value of exports, the country is making
from Lentil trade in the international market that will justify
the need to invest in lentil research and development.
*Corresponding Author: Baye Belay, Ethiopian Institute
of Agricultural Research P.O. Box 2003, Adis Ababa,
Ethiopia. E-mail: eyob.bezabeh@gmail.com

Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia

Bezabeh and Belay 564

DATA 𝑙𝑛𝑦𝑡 = 𝑎 + 𝑏𝑡 + 𝑒 ........................................... (2)

Time series data that cover a period of 24 years (1993 to Where, a = ln (yo ), and b = ln ( 1 + r ). Equation 2 is then
2016) were used. Data on production, area coverage and fitted to data using “method of least squares” and
yield were obtained from FAOSTAT (2016) and the export goodness of fit is assessed by the coefficient of
volume and value of Lentils were obtained from Revenue determination R2 . Finally, the compound growth rate is
and Custom Authority of Ethiopia. The export volume and estimated by,
value data collected from the Authority of Ethiopia r^ = exp (b^ ) – 1 ........................................... (3)
represents national level volume of Lentils exported and
the revenue the country has generated from its export. The
specific feature of the data obtained is that it is reliable and RESULTS AND DESCUSSION
free from estimation error as it is obtained from direct
recording of data registry which captured every transaction Trends in production, area and yield
in Lentils export.
The total area of land under Lentil production, total volume
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS of production and yield has been growing over years. The
The analysis of this study is based on different total area of land under production has been reached
econometric models and descriptive statistics. Semi-log 113,685 ha in 2016 from 45,060 ha during 1993 (Table 1).
trend function was fitted to the data following the procedure Production rate showed an increase from 25,034 tons in
of Gujarati to find out the trend and estimate the growth 1993 to 166,274tons in 2016 when the highest production
rate of production, area and yield and also the volume and is registered in the year. On the other hand, a positive
value of the export of Lentils in Ethiopia. annual percentage change has been registered in the
production of the crop Lentil except during 1994, 1997,
If yt denotes the observation (e.g. agricultural production, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2010 and 2014. And also a positive
productivity, or area) at time t and r is the compound annual percentage change has been registered in area,
growth rate, model employed for estimating r is based on except in 1997, 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010 and 2014.
yt = yo (1 + r) t ........................................... (1) Despite, the fluctuations in the percentage changes over
the years, Lentil productivity has revealed a growth trend.
The usual practice is to assume a multiplicative error-term As presented in Figure 2, the productivity of Lentil in the
exp (ε) so that the model may be linearized by means of early 1990s was 0.6 t/ha while in late 2000s, it has grown
logarithmic transformation, to 1 t/ha, and in 2016, it reached 1.5 t/ha.
Table 1. Annual percentage change in area, production and yield
Total area Annual percentage Total production Annual percentage Yield Annual percentage
Year
in ha change in area in tone change in production (tone/ha) change in yield
1993 45,060 25,034 0.6
1994 48,140 7 24,333 -3 0.5 -9
1995 61,870 29 37,904 56 0.6 21
1996 83,360 35 40,311 6 0.5 -21
1997 50,070 -40 33,456 -17 0.7 38
1998 66,110 32 36,137 8 0.5 -18
1999 66,870 1 33,440 -7 0.5 -9
2000 75,000 12 59,000 76 0.8 57
2001 95,000 27 65,250 11 0.7 -13
2002 60,138 -37 38,430 -41 0.6 -7
2003 52,000 -14 35,000 -9 0.7 5
2004 52,062 0 35,275 1 0.7 1
2005 76,642 47 54,555 55 0.7 5
2006 84,895 11 57,603 6 0.7 -5
2007 97,110 14 81,094 41 0.8 23
2008 107,428 11 94,103 16 0.9 5
2009 105,956 -1 123,777 32 1.2 33
2010 77,334 -27 80,952 -35 1.0 -10
2011 109,895 42 128,009 58 1.2 11
2012 123,718 13 151,500 18 1.2 5
2013 125,830 2 159,121 5 1.3 3
2014 98,869 -21 137,354 -14 1.4 10
2015 100,693 2 147,637 7 1.5 6
2016 113,685 13 166,274 13 1.5 0
Authors calculation based on data from FAOSTAT
Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia
 Int. J. Plant Breed. Crop Sci. 565

Ethiopia has been exporting some quantities of Lentils to

Fig. 1. Trend in Land area coverage and total volume of
Lentils Production
various parts of the world since 1997. Figure 3 shows
exports of Lentils from 1997 to 2016. The period under
analysis opened with low volumes of Lentils exports and
this was followed by substantial increase in volume of
Lentils exports during 2007. Between 2006 and 2009 trend
in the volume of dried lentils, shelled has been increasing
steadily. In 1997, the total quantity of Lentils exported from
Ethiopia to Israel and Djibouti was 18,470 kg. From these
18,120 kg was exported to Djibouti and incurred about
257,979 birr. And after some fluctuations it increased to
1,728,634 kg during 2002 and reached its climax
12,947,165 kg in 2009. Ethiopia is exporting shelled dried
lentils. And this indicates that, value added products of
Lentils has not been given much attention to export to
different countries in the world, so small micro enterprises
and others interested body can engage in the production
as well as processing of Lentils.

Fig. 2. Trend in Lentil productivity

REGRESSION ANALYSIS

The simple linear regression functions were fitted for Fig 3: Trend in export volume of Lentils
estimating the response of production of Lentil due to the
change of its respective area and yield. And productions of In terms of value, the period under analysis opened with
Lentils were significantly increased. The coefficient of relatively higher values of Lentils exports and this was
production on area and yield were0.796 and 93468.677 followed by substantial decrease in value of Lentils
respectively, as shown inTable 2 below. exports. The export value was 173,032 birr in 1997 and
reached its climax during 2014 which was 25,658,382 birr
Table 2: Regression analysis - to test the dependency of (fig 3). The period under review closed with relatively low
production on area and yield of Lentil export values of Lentils. The trend in value of Lentils
variables Regression coefficient t-value P(T<=t) export was generally does not show any significant
two tail increase. And this shows that Lentils was not given more
constant -69670.768 -18.772 0.000 attention as an income generating means in the
Area 0.796 11.703 0.000 international market.
yield 93468.677 18.250 0.000

GROWTH RATE

Table 3 shows that the area, yield and production of Lentils

have a significant (significant at 1%) positive trends of 4, 5
and 9 percent per annum over the study period
respectively.

Table 3. Growth rate in area, production and yield of

Lentils
Area Production Yield
CAGR 4* 9* 5*
Trends in export volume and value of Lentils Fig 4: Trends in export value of Lentils
Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia
Bezabeh and Belay 566

Trend in Value-to-volume ratio (VVR) for exported Year Total Volume Total Value VVR
Lentils 2013 40,000 198,974 5.0
2014 10,000 198,710 19.9
According to Bezabeh E (2017) the trend in the export 2015 - -
value-to-volume ratio (VVR) is an indicator of whether the 2016 170,000 17,563 0.1
product is either gaining or losing value from movement in
world prices. It gives an indication of the extent to which Major Export Destinations of Ethiopian Lentils
the product can be considered a relatively high-value
export. In other words, VVR is the amount of local currency The exports destination countries are summarized in table
earned from a kilogram of export item over time and 5. The VVR for each destination country is also provided
calculated by dividing total value in birr by total volume in which help us compare countries based on the VVR and
kilogram of the export item. made decision which country can provide better
advantage for Ethiopia’s Lentils. Accordingly, the countries
From figure 5 we can reveal that, the VVR for exported for which Ethiopia’s Lentils has been exported includes
Ethiopian lentils fluctuated during the study period. As a Bangladesh, Djibouti, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya,
result of this the volume of the exported Lentils has not Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sudan, Turkey, United
been increasing. Therefore, the country has not been Arab Emirates and Yemen.
benefited with the crop in the international market.
Pakistan and United Arab Emirates were the highest
volume recipient countries for Ethiopian Lentils with the
percentage share of 20 % and 16 % respectively. The total
volume of export destined to Pakistan during the study
period was 8,808,933.8kg and the total volume exported
to the second large recipient country United Arab Emirates
has been 7,279,225 kg.

Italy was the destination country from which highest VVR

from Lentils export is received. Ethiopia earns birr 25/kg
from export of Lentils to Italy. While, the rest of major
export destinations exhibited lower VVR.
Fig 5: Trend in Value-to-volume ratio (VVR) for exported
Lentils
The export value of 1kg of Lentils per kg for export
On the other hand, from Table 4 we can see that the destined to largest recipient country of Ethiopian Lentils
average VVR for exported Ethiopian Lentils during the export- Pakistan was birr 7 and that of United Arab
Emirates was birr 9 which are below the average. This
study period has been birr 10/kg. The highest VVR in
implies that Ethiopia is exporting much of its Lentils to
exporting Lentils from Ethiopia was birr 65/kg during 2012,
countries provide lowest VVR, implying that the country is
whereas the least VVR of birr 0.1/kg was registered during
losing advantage in the international market.
2016.
Table 5. Export Destinations of Ethiopian Lentils
Table 4: VVR for exported Ethiopian lentils
Destination Net Mass FOB Value VVR
Year Total Volume Total Value VVR
(Kg) (ETB)
1997 18,470 262,513 14.2
Bangladesh 3,562,501 22,678,029 6.4
1998 29,100 101,989 3.5
Benin 4,500 22,333 5.0
1999 35,000 144,917 4.1
Bulgaria 215,000 1,402,741 6.5
2000 124,969 563,949 4.5
Canada 100 385 3.9
2001 835,025 2,735,489 3.3
China 540,778 3,325,084 6.1
2002 1,728,634 4,920,650 2.8
Djibouti 4,519,700 24,468,965 5.4
2003 855,437 2,827,114 3.3
Egypt 1,096,500 12,950,302 11.8
2004 992,657 3,340,338 3.4
Germany 200 876 4.4
2005 1,414,853 4,956,659 3.5
Great Britain 104,790 438,426 4.2
2006 627,968 1,912,673 3.0
Greece 21,100 75,805 3.6
2007 9,606,092 52,005,106 5.4
India 1,364,816 9,327,095 6.8
2008 10,813,239 81,658,005 7.6
Indonesia 499,400 2,185,913 4.4
2009 12,947,165 137,523,643 10.6
Iran 76,000 470,592 6.2
2010 3,053,134 43,313,296 14.2
Israel 284,518 1,520,694 5.3
2011 1,152,202 18,316,129 15.9
Italy 370 9,085 24.6
2012 220 14,330 65.1

Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia

 Int. J. Plant Breed. Crop Sci. 567

Table 5 continue. Export Destinations of Ethiopian Lentils the destination country from which highest value/kg (birr
Net Mass FOB Value 25/kg) from Lentils export was received.
VVR
Destination (Kg) (ETB)
Jordan 266,000 1,788,912 6.7 In terms of volume, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates
Kenya 671,600 7,507,521 11.2 were the highest volume recipient countries for Ethiopian
Mauritius 42,000 461,397 11.0 Lentils with the percentage share of 20% and16%
Netherlands 131,835 586,445 4.4 respectively. But the export value of 1kg of Lentils per kg
Pakistan 8,808,934 57,062,450 6.5 for export destined to largest recipient country of Ethiopian
Panama 62,874 177,070 2.8 Lentils export- Pakistan was birr 7 and that of United Arab
Philippines 109,780 485,794 4.4 Emirates was birr 9 which indicates us that, we are losing
Saudi Arabia 2,467,360 23,104,222 9.4 the advantage in the international market.
Singapore 1,476,780 14,720,283 10.0
Ethiopia is exporting large proportion of its Lentils to
South Africa 44,000 264,017 6.0
countries that provide lowest VVR. In order to enhance the
Sudan 3,606,322 44,884,744 12.4
revenue, the country generate from its Lentils production
Sweden 100 505 5.0
countries that provide higher VVR has to be targeted.
Switzerland 283,912 3,132,747 11.0
Syrian Arab Republic 220,000 2,656,759 12.1
Turkey 4,097,008 41,708,017 10.2 REFERENCES
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Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia

Bezabeh and Belay 568

Accepted 20 September 2019

Citation: Bezabeh E, Belay B (2019). Trends in

Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia. International
Journal of Plant Breeding and Crop Science, 6(2): 563-
568.

Copyright: © 2019: Bezabeh and Belay. This is an open-

access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original author and source are cited.

Trends in Production and Export of Lentils in Ethiopia