Ethiopia's Agricultural Exports Reach $4.55 Billion in 2025/26 Fiscal Year

ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture announced record export earnings on 2 September 2026, reporting that agricultural products generated more than $4.55 billion in foreign exchange during the 2025/26 fiscal year, which closed on 7 July. The figure was presented at a ministry forum reviewing the year's performance and setting priorities for 2026/27, led by State Minister Sofia Kassa. The number is genuinely large for a single sector, and it arrives alongside a second figure from a different part of government that puts it in sharper context: Ethiopia's Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration separately reported the country's total exports reached a record $10.7 billion for the same fiscal year, with gold alone generating more than $5.5 billion. Agriculture's record year, in other words, was still smaller than what mining alone brought in. Coffee Is Still Carrying Ethiopia's Farm Exports The agricultural export figure remains overwhelmingly dependent on one commodity. Coffee generated $3.1 billion of the total $4.55 billion, more than two-thirds of all agricultural export earnings, a concentration the ministry did not attempt to soften: it did not provide a breakdown of the remaining $1.45 billion across other agricultural exports, whether oilseeds, pulses, horticulture, livestock products or spices, leaving the composition of Ethiopia's second-largest agricultural export category effectively undisclosed. That concentration is not new, coffee has anchored Ethiopian agricultural exports for decades, but it does mean the sector's headline growth number moves largely in step with global coffee prices and Ethiopian coffee production specifically, rather than reflecting broad-based diversification across the dozens of crops the ministry's own production statistics suggest Ethiopia grows at scale. What Actually Got Produced Metric2025/26 Fiscal Year Figure Land under cultivation33.5 million hectaresTotal crop production1.85 billion quintalsMilk production15.83 billion litresHoney production427,900 tonnesEgg production11.7 billionFertiliser distributed20 million quintalsGreen Legacy Initiative seedlings planted7.7 billionTotal agricultural export earnings$4.55 billionCoffee's share of agricultural exports$3.1 billion (~68%)Sources: FDRE Ministry of Agriculture; Fana Media Corporation; Birr Metrics; Xinhua. The livestock figures come from Ethiopia's Bounty of the Basket programme (branded YeLemat Trufat in Amharic), a government initiative aimed at boosting dairy, poultry, honey and other livestock-derived output as a complement to crop agriculture. One figure worth flagging precisely: honey production for the year came to 427,900 tonnes, not 427 million tonnes as some initial wire summaries of the ministry's announcement rendered it, a distinction that matters given global honey production totals only around 1.8 to 2 million tonnes annually across the entire world. Ethiopia's actual figure, still a substantial output for a single country's honey sector, is roughly a fortieth of that inflated number, and the correct figure is the one worth citing going forward. The Comparison the Ministry Didn't Make Reading the Ministry of Agriculture's announcement in isolation makes $4.55 billion sound like Ethiopia's dominant export story for the year. Reading it alongside the Ministry of Trade's own report, published roughly two months earlier, changes that picture considerably. Trade Minister Kassahun Gofe said Ethiopia's total export earnings reached $10.7 billion for the same 2025/26 fiscal year, the highest in the country's history and 14% above the ministry's own target, with gold identified as the single largest export earner at more than $5.5 billion, ahead of coffee, ahead of agriculture as a whole. That means mining, not farming, produced Ethiopia's largest single export category this year, a genuinely notable shift for an economy where agriculture still employs a substantially larger share of the workforce than mining does. Ethiopia's government has separately signalled it intends to keep pushing mining exports further, with plans to raise mining export revenue above $10 billion within five years and ongoing discussions with a foreign company to process and market tantalum domestically rather than continuing to export it in raw form, exactly the kind of value-addition strategy that could widen the gap between mining and agricultural export earnings further if it succeeds. Why This Matters Beyond Bragging Rights The comparison isn't simply a statistical curiosity. It carries real implications for how Ethiopia should think about its economic exposure and its development priorities. An export base increasingly anchored by gold carries different risks than one anchored by coffee: gold prices move with global monetary policy, currency conditions and investor risk appetite, while coffee prices move with weather, global consumption trends and competing producer countries' harvests, different risk factors that a diversified economy would ideally hedge against each other rather than concentrate around either single commodity. It also raises a genuine policy question about where government attention and investment should flow. Agriculture employs a far larger share of Ethiopia's population than mining does, meaning agricultural export growth translates into broader household income gains across many more Ethiopians than an equivalent dollar of mining export growth does. If mining is now outpacing agriculture in raw export value while employing a fraction of the workforce, the productivity gap between the two sectors, in dollars earned per worker, is almost certainly widening substantially, a dynamic worth watching for what it implies about inequality between Ethiopia's agricultural regions and its mining and urban economic centres. The Parts of the Ministry's Report Worth Taking at Face Value None of this undercuts the fact that Ethiopia's agricultural sector genuinely grew this year. The scale of cultivated land, 33.5 million hectares, and total output, 1.85 billion quintals, represent substantial farming activity by any measure, and the ministry's emphasis on irrigated wheat production specifically reflects a real, multi-year push to reduce Ethiopia's historical dependence on imported wheat, a push that has shown measurable results in national wheat output even if it hasn't yet transformed wheat into a significant export earner itself. The fertiliser distribution figure, 20 million quintals reaching farmers nationwide, also matters more than it might first appear, given that Ethiopia secured this supply, according to the ministry, despite disruptions several other countries faced amid conflict in the Middle East, a reminder that Ethiopia's own food security and export performance remain exposed to global supply chain shocks even when the country manages to navigate around them successfully in a given year. What to Watch Going Into 2026/27 The Ministry of Agriculture said mechanisation, digital agriculture and climate-resilience measures would be priorities for the coming fiscal year, alongside continued efforts to modernise production and management systems. Those are the right stated priorities for a sector still built overwhelmingly around one export crop: mechanisation and digital tools tend to raise productivity per hectare and per worker, which matters directly for closing the earnings gap between agriculture and mining, while climate resilience addresses the weather-dependency that makes agricultural output, and by extension coffee-driven export earnings, considerably more volatile year to year than mineral exports tend to be. Whether Ethiopia's agricultural export figure grows meaningfully beyond coffee next year, and whether the government provides the commodity-level breakdown of that undisclosed $1.45 billion this time, will be a reasonable test of whether this year's record represents the start of genuine diversification or simply another strong coffee year dressed up as a broader agricultural success story. FAQ How much did Ethiopia earn from agricultural exports in 2025/26? More than $4.55 billion, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, a record for the sector, with coffee accounting for $3.1 billion of that total. Is agriculture Ethiopia's largest export earner? No, not this year. Ethiopia's Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration separately reported that gold alone generated more than $5.5 billion in export earnings during the same fiscal year, making mining the country's single largest export category ahead of agriculture as a whole. How dependent is Ethiopia's agricultural export revenue on coffee? Very. Coffee accounted for roughly 68% of total agricultural export earnings, and the Ministry of Agriculture did not disclose a breakdown of the remaining $1.45 billion across other agricultural commodities. How much land and output did Ethiopia's agricultural sector produce? 33.5 million hectares were cultivated during the fiscal year, producing 1.85 billion quintals of crop output, alongside 15.83 billion litres of milk, 427,900 tonnes of honey, and 11.7 billion eggs under the government's livestock programmes. What is Ethiopia's total export performance for the year? The Ministry of Trade reported total exports of $10.7 billion for the 2025/26 fiscal year, a national record, exceeding the ministry's own target by 14%. What are Ethiopia's agricultural priorities for the coming year? The Ministry of Agriculture said mechanisation, digital agriculture and climate-resilience measures would be key priorities for 2026/27, alongside continued efforts to modernise agricultural production and management systems.