Background
According to World Atlas, Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, has fertile land for agriculture and livestock production, considerable potential of mineral deposits that are yet to be explored, wildlife of various species of fauna and flora, and a long coastline along the widest part of the Red Sea. The fishery resources in the Red Sea offers a great opportunity for fishing and tourism industries. It is also believed to have massive reserves of gas and oil to be exploited. Geologically, about 60% of the land mass of the country is covered by Nubian Shield rocks making it rich in gold and other base metal mines. The recently discovered Colluli Potash Project located in the Danakil region and the Bisha Project in the western region of the country are two examples of the mining potential of the country.
Despite the endowment with rich and diverse potential natural resources and resilient hard-working citizens, African Economic Outlook (2020) lists Eritrea as one of the most food insecure countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the report highlights that agricultural productivity has been reduced mainly due to climate change and delayed agricultural transformation, making Eritrea one of the poorest countries in the region. In general, climate change impacts have contributed to the food insecurity in Sub-Saharan region, but poor governance due to the current political situation severely impacted the potential agricultural transformation and modernizing the food production system. About 25% of the arable land in the country remains idle with no agricultural productivity due to the war with neighbouring Ethiopia. The last household survey and participatory poverty assessment undertaken in 2003 estimated around two-thirds of the people were living below the poverty line and by some estimates, the food deprivation in Eritrea is among the highest in the world. Availability of up-to-date comprehensive data on the current situation of food security and welfare/livelihood outcomes in the country has been a challenge.
Long term Objectives of the focus group
One of the ten focus groups of the Eritrean Research Institute for Policy and Strategy (ERIPS), the Agriculture, Natural Resources and Fisheries (ANRF) group is composed of Eritrean professionals with expertise and skills in the fields of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, natural resources, economic development and related developmental policy issues. While actively supporting the current movements of Eritrean scholars and professionals to bring justice in the country, ERIPS-ANRF will simultaneously conduct high-level research on recognised gaps, challenges, and opportunities regarding the status of the country in areas related to the above-mentioned topics and seeks to identify policy options and technical solutions with implications to improving food security and sustainable economic development of the nation. The ERIPS-ANRF focus group selects specific research topics based on the evolving need to systematically investigate and bring solutions to the past and current calamities in the country and hopes to lay a foundation to support future food and agricultural policy makers, relevant stakeholders in the next democratically elected government, and public and private entrepreneurs in the food production system.
Short term objectives
In the short run, ERIPS-ANRF aims to initiate research and creating digital database systems for the dynamics of land use in Eritrea over the last three decades with implications for food security. Land use and land cover changes can substantially impact food security of a nation due to their implications to the traditional and modern the food production system.
The ERIPS-ANRF group has been engaged in initiatives by ERIPS on hunger and poverty awareness and fund-raising programs to support vulnerable populations in Eritrea during the COVID19 pandemic period, and potential research ideas for addressing catastrophic global climatic and health issues in the food security policies in Eritrea.
Following extensive discussions, the ERIPS-ANRF group agreed to focus in the short-term to investigate the dynamics of land use of Eritrea over the last three decades using digital big-data management system and the implications to the food security of the nation. The main goals of this research are:
(i) to quantitatively evaluate how the land use in Eritrea evolved over the last three decades and its implications to food security; and
(ii) to prepare report that comprises evidence of the government policies that affected the country’s land use and land cover changes which lead to the current deterioration of food security in the nation.
Lack of up-to-date comprehensive information and data on Eritrea’s recent and current economic structural changes and performance results, precludes conducting a robust assessment of the country’s economic context. As a result, the selected research work aims to fill this gap by leveraging publicly available data on land use dynamics in Eritrea during the last three decades and synthesizing data on the changes in yield productivity and area expansion for agriculture and other uses of land as influenced by the prevailing policy and economic conditions in the country. For this purpose, first freely available historical Landsat remote sensing images taken over Eritrea will be analysed to capture quantitative information of the dynamics of land use and land cover in the last three decades. The information extracted from remote sensing image analysis will then be compared against the evolution of the government policies before and after the war with Ethiopia and other information relevant to food security. Results from this study are expected to lay the basis for future studies on sustainable natural resource development and to cast light on how the government policies progressively deteriorated the livelihood of Eritreans in the last three decades and to propose remedial measures