Addis Ababa: Ethiopia is strongly committed to building a climate change resilience, Agriculture Minister Girma Amente underscored.
Ethiopians have been preparing to plant 600 million seedlings in a day on the coming Friday as per the national call made by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as part of this year’s Green Legacy Initiative.
In a press conference conducted today, Agriculture Minister Girma Amente said Ethiopia has been working with strong commitment to building a climate change resilience economy.
One of the instruments that the country is employing in this regard is the Green Legacy Initiative, launched in 2019 by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The minister elaborated that the initiative has been playing crucial role in supporting the country’s efforts to ensuring food security as it also incorporates the plantation of edible seedlings, citing the impressive achievements registered over the past five years in the production of fruits notably avocado.
Out of the total seedlings prepared for this year’s p
lanting season, 56 percent are fruits and other multipurpose plants, according to the minister.
In this year Green Legacy initiative, about 6.9 billion seedlings have already been planted throughout Ethiopia, Minister of Agriculture, Girma announced.
The initiative aspires to plant 50 billion seedlings by 2026 in two phases, the minister said, noting that 32.5 billion trees have so far been planted over the past five years.
The total forest coverage of Ethiopia has now reached 23.6 percent, Girma pointed out emphasizing the contribution of the Green Legacy Initiative to this remarkable achievement which has also been confirmed by reliable scientific methods.
‘If the country’s forestation effort continues with the current pace, it will be able to attain its goal of increasing the coverage to 30 percent by the year 2030.’
He further pointed out that about 6.9 billion seedlings have been planted throughout Ethiopia thus far, declaring that most of the tree planting activities are finalized.
Hence, he said
the 600 million tree seedlings prepared to be planted in a single day campaign on the coming Friday will be the rounding up of this year’s program.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency