Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia, officially the people's democratic republic of Ethiopia, is a country of eastern Africa, situated on the Horn of Africa, and covering an area of 472,400 square miles. The capital is Addis Ababa (Hodd 81). It is about 700 miles in length northwest to southeast, and 640 miles in width, northeast to southwest. Ethiopia is bordered by on the east by Djibouti and Somalia, on the south by Kenya, and on the west by The Sudan. It has 628 miles of coastline along the Red Sea, on the northeast and about 150 Red Sea islands belong to Ethiopia (Hodd 84). The population of Ethiopia is approximately 64 million, second only to Nigeria among African countries. The geographic coordinates of Ethiopia are 8Ð'o N 38Ð'oE and is slightly less than twice the size of Texas. Ethiopia is unique as one of the oldest countries in the world, one of the first countries to adopt Christianity, and one of the few areas of Africa which was never a European colony except for a brief period under Italy in the 1930s (Munro-Hay 112).

The climate of Ethiopia and its dependent territories varies greatly. Somaliland and the Danakil lowlands have a hot, dry climate producing semi-desert conditions; the country in the lower basin of the Sobat is hot, swampy and malarious. But over the greater part of Ethiopia as well as the Galla highlands the climate is very healthy and temperate. The country lies wholly within the tropics, but its nearness to the equator is counterbalanced by the elevation of the land. In the deep valleys of the Takazze and Abai, and generally in places below 4000 ft., the conditions are tropical and fevers are prevalent (Erlikh 62). On the uplands, however, the air is cool and bracing in summer,

and in winter very bleak. The mean range of temperature is between 60Ð'oand 80Ð'o F. Winter, or the cold season, lasts from October to February, and is followed by a dry hot period, which about the middle of June gives place to the rainy season. There are also spring and winter rains; indeed rain often falls in every month of the year. But the rainy season proper, caused by the south-west monsoon, lasts from June to mid-September, and commencing in the north moves southward (Erlikh 62).

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries and has a centrally palnned developing economy largely based on agriculture. This accounts for half of gross domestic product (GDP), 90% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The major agricultural export crop is coffee, providing 65%-75% of Ethiopia's foreign exchange earnings. Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy, and Ethiopia earned $267 million in 1999 by exporting 105,000 metric tons. According to current estimates, coffee contributes 10% of Ethiopia's GDP. More than 15 million people (25% of the population) derive their livelihood from the coffee sector. Other exports include live animals, hides, gold, pulses, oilseeds, and khat (or "qat") a leafy shrub which has psychotropic qualities when chewed (Hodd 38).

Ethiopia's agriculture is plagued