The federal government marked the International Day of Co-operatives July 6 by announcing $500,000 in government support for a smallholder farmer co-operative project in Ethiopia.
It was the second commitment to Ethiopia in less than three months from a government whose critics accuse it of abandoning its international development mandate in favour of more international business partnerships.
In April, the Canadian International Development Agency joined with the Canadian Co-operative Association in announcing a $2.1 million Ethiopian project to help small landholder farmers cope with climate change.
CIDA will pick up $1.8 million of the budget, with the rest coming from the co-op sector.
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The July 6 announcement by international development minister Julian Fantino recognized the 1.7 million smallholder Ethiopian farmers who will be helped through co-operatives and who he called the backbone of the economy.
“That is why we are providing technical support and training co-operatives to offer more business-oriented and gender-sensitive services to their clients in Ethiopia,” he said in a statement marking the day.
CIDA said the commitment was part of a four-year, $10 million contribution to the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency, an Ethiopian government agency, in partnership with the Canadian Co-operative Association and the United Nations.
The CCA’s April announcement said the climate change project will provide Ethiopian farmers with drought-resistant seeds, education in minimum till practices, people-powered irrigation pumps and tree planting as part of preserving the soil.
“Climate change is a critical issue in Ethiopia,” said Jo-Anne Ferguson, the association’s international development senior director.
Co-ops are a way to “help these and other vulnerable rural communities adapt to climate changes and protect and improve their livelihoods,” she said.
The CCA statement said the 15-month project “will also strengthen the capacity of farmer-owned co-operative enterprises to stabilize and improve farmer livelihoods by improving the production, storage and marketing of vegetables, ground nut, linseed and garlic that they grow and by linking farmers to sources of needed credit.”
