Rice Production areas Worldwide

 Introduction Ethiopia is confronting diverse climate associated challenges in 2020. The main challenges are related with all the desert locust invasions from the Northeast (Tigray, Wollo and Afar regions ) and South-eastern (Dire Dawa and Hararghe) areas of the country and flooding linked with continuous heavy rains which has influenced the Fogera plain and the lowland regions of Afar area. In addition, the flood in the Fogera plain was aggravated by (I) the bad management of irrigation channels of this uncompleted rib river irrigation strategy, which was under construction since 2008, (ii) lack of flood management structures in the districts of the Fogera simple, and (iii) the absence of coordinated and proper watershed management practices (e.g. afforestation, terracing and other flooding controlling practices) on the upper catchment regions (upland regions ) of the Fogera plain, and a lack of flood-risk reduction and analysis for a fast reaction. In addition to the extent of harm, we talk about the continuing efforts put in place to deal with challenges together with expected consequences on rice commercialization and the livelihoods of farmers in the Fogera plain.Steps underway to Deal with the affected families following the flooding, those severely affected have received humanitarian support , such as provision of temporary shelter (home, blankets, tarpaulins, sleeping mats) and relief support (provision of water and food ).Concerning rehabilitation, there is a strategy to guarantee accessibility of seeds from crops that may be increased while the floodwater subsides, chiefly linked to short maturing crops like pulses and crops that may be grown with supplementary irrigation. As reported by respondents, the expected challenges will be (I) ensuring that the supply of quality seed of preferred varieties of short maturing plants, (ii) labour shortage, as all affected farmers need to plant at the same period, (iii) the possible communicable disease pandemic following the flooding (e.g. typhoid, cholera and Malaria), and (iv) persistent food insecurity exerted by both the flood and COVID-19 related food cost surge.Expected impact of the flooding on rice commercialisation and farmers' livelihoodThe answers of farmers and specialists from the respective district office of agriculture and Early Warning and Risk Management offices indicate the next brief and long-term effects related to rice commercialisation and farmers' livelihoods:The need to ensure food security for the affected farm families through humanitarian aid, which also demands redirection of agriculture development efforts;Availability of paddy rice from the present principal production will be substantially reduced resulting in higher prices of both paddy and milled rice.The food safety status of plantation householders in rural areas and households in urban areas will be substantially reduced as food costs will be very high;The projected crop production on the residual moisture in the soil after the flooding will contribute to improvement in the availability of food for farm families. On the other hand, the extent of production is expected to be influenced by shortage of labor, as all influenced farmers will begin farm activities at exactly the same time.Considering that the exacerbation of harm has been mainly as a result of inefficiency in the construction and absence of timely completion of noodle irrigation scheme, policy makers have been expected to enhance production systems with greater access to irrigation, along with also the chance of off-season creation of different crops such as high value crops (vegetables). Rib irrigation is one of the major investments in the Fogera plain expected to alter the entire harvest production system covering 20,000 ha of land and reaching 40,000 farmers.The building of Rib irrigation dam began in 2008 with a local contractor, Ethiopian Construction Works Corporation together with all the financial aid of World Bank as part of the Bank's Ethiopian Nile Irrigation and Drainage Project (ENIDP) with first estimated budget of 1.3 billion birr and has been supposed to be finished in 2012. It was formally inaugurated in 2018 after 10 years in a cost of 3.8 billion birr. On the other hand, the strategy is still not finished, together with the regional authorities planning to achieve this from the first half of 2021.