Ethiopia’s food challenge is increasingly becoming an affordability challenge.
For many urban households, incomes have not kept pace with the rising cost of essential goods. While cereals and vegetables remain relatively accessible, protein-rich foods such as meat, milk, and eggs have experienced some of the fastest price increases in recent years. As a result, nutritional choices are becoming increasingly constrained by purchasing power rather than availability.
There is injera. There is shiro. But meat rarely appears on the table. Milk is carefully rationed among the children. Eggs are purchased less frequently than before. Chicken is reserved for holidays and special occasions.
The challenge is not simply finding food. It is affording nutritious food.
This experience reflects a broader reality facing millions of Ethiopians. And it unfolds against one of the country’s greatest economic paradoxes.
Ethiopia possesses Africa’s largest livestock population and ranks among the top five globally, with more than 58 million cattle. For decades, livestock has been one of the country’s most important agricultural assets.
Yet despite this abundance, millions of Ethiopians struggle to access animal-source foods. In 2026, an estimated 15.8 million people face acute hunger, while food insecurity and malnutrition remain persistent national concerns.
The question is no longer whether Ethiopia produces enough livestock. The question is why so many Ethiopians cannot afford the nutrition that livestock should provide.
The Rising Cost of Protein
The answer becomes clearer when examining household consumption patterns.
Average annual meat consumption in Ethiopia stands at just 5.3 kilograms per person, less than half the African average and only a fraction of consumption levels seen in developed economies. Poultry consumption remains below one kilogram per person annually, while milk consumption averages only 22 liters per year, far below international nutritional recommendations.
Recent price trends have made these foods even less accessible.
In January 2026 alone:
- Cow milk prices increased by 20 percent
- Raw fish prices rose by 20 percent
- Goat meat prices climbed by 14 percent
- Egg prices increased by 5 percent
Notably, this occurred while prices for vegetables such as onions and tomatoes declined due to seasonal harvests.
The issue was therefore not a broad-based food shortage. Rather, it was a sharp increase in the cost of protein-rich foods that are essential for healthy diets.
The trend continued throughout the year.
By March 2026, meat prices had risen 14.7 percent year-on-year, while milk and egg prices increased by roughly 14 percent. By April, meat inflation had accelerated to 18.1 percent. In May, overall inflation reached 13.4 percent, but animal-based foods experienced even steeper increases. Meat prices were nearly 20 percent higher than a year earlier, while milk, cheese, and eggs rose by approximately 19.3 percent.
Meanwhile, bread and cereal prices increased by only 6.7 percent.
The gap illustrates a growing affordability crisis. Households may still be able to access calories, but increasingly struggle to access nutrition.
Why Abundance Does Not Translate into Affordability
The paradox becomes easier to understand when looking beyond livestock numbers and examining the structure of Ethiopia’s food system.
Low Productivity, High Costs
Although Ethiopia has one of the world’s largest cattle populations, livestock productivity remains relatively low.
Average beef productivity is estimated at around 110 kilograms per head, roughly half the global average.
At the same time, feed represents between 60 and 70 percent of livestock production costs. Because many feed inputs depend directly or indirectly on imports, rising foreign exchange costs quickly translate into higher production expenses.
When feed becomes more expensive, so do milk, meat, and eggs.
Many dairy processors have reported operating below capacity as inflation and foreign exchange shortages increase production costs and disrupt supply chains.
The Currency Shock
The floating of the Ethiopian birr in July 2024 marked a significant turning point.
The exchange rate moved from around 56 birr per dollar to well above 115 birr per dollar within a short period. While the reform aimed to correct long-standing distortions and support broader economic restructuring, it also dramatically increased the local-currency cost of imported goods.
For the livestock sector, the effects were immediate.
Fuel, transportation, veterinary supplies, machinery, and agricultural inputs all became more expensive.
Subsequent fuel price adjustments intensified these pressures. Diesel prices increased sharply during early 2026, raising transportation costs across the economy. Every stage of the livestock value chain, from moving feed to transporting cattle and distributing finished products, became more costly.
Ultimately, those costs reached consumers.
Weak Market Infrastructure
Structural inefficiencies further widen the gap between producers and consumers.
Many livestock farmers operate with limited access to market information, financing, storage facilities, and transportation infrastructure. As a result, producers often sell livestock under pressure and at relatively low prices.
Yet urban consumers continue to face high retail prices.
The difference is absorbed by inefficiencies throughout the value chain, including brokerage costs, transportation challenges, spoilage, and fragmented market systems.
Cold storage facilities remain limited. Road infrastructure remains uneven in several regions. Informal and cross-border livestock trade can also reduce supplies available to domestic markets.
The result is a system in which farmers receive less than they should, consumers pay more than they should, and overall efficiency remains low.
The Nutritional Consequences
Food affordability is ultimately not just an economic issue, it is a human capital issue.
Children are often the first to experience the consequences of rising food prices.
National surveys show that dairy consumption among Ethiopian children aged six to twenty-three months declined significantly even before the recent inflationary period. As animal-source foods become more expensive, households naturally shift toward cheaper alternatives.
While these substitutions may provide calories, they often fail to deliver the proteins and micronutrients necessary for healthy childhood development.
Malnutrition remains a major challenge across several regions of the country. Millions of women and children continue to require nutritional assistance, while humanitarian agencies face funding constraints that limit their ability to respond.
The long-term implications extend beyond immediate health outcomes. Poor nutrition affects educational performance, labor productivity, and future economic potential.
In that sense, food affordability is not merely a welfare issue, it is an investment issue.
Abundance Without Access
Ethiopia’s livestock sector demonstrates that production alone does not guarantee nutritional security.
The country possesses millions of cattle, sheep, and goats. Yet many households continue to struggle to afford milk, eggs, and meat.
The challenge is therefore not simply increasing livestock numbers.
It is improving productivity, strengthening market infrastructure, reducing inefficiencies in the value chain, expanding cold-chain logistics, supporting farmers with better inputs and market access, and ensuring that macroeconomic reforms translate into broad-based improvements in living standards.
The central lesson is straightforward:
Livestock abundance does not automatically create food security.
Only when production, productivity, markets, infrastructure, and affordability work together can agricultural wealth translate into better nutrition for ordinary households.
Until then, Ethiopia’s livestock success story will remain incomplete, measured not only by the number of animals in its fields, but by the affordability of the food on its tables.
