Over 128,000 smallholder farmers organized in union in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia have moved into manufacturing by inaugurating today a new cooking oil manufacturing and packaging factory. Tsehay Farmers’ Cooperative Union has inaugurates today a 100 million birr (about $3.6 million) cooking oil factory. Located in Azezo area in central Gondar, the factory will produce 12,000 liters of cooking oil a day when the factory goes fully operational. In Ethiopia smallholder farmers unions and cooperatives have been moving into agro-processing manufacturing sector over the past few years. Last year, a cooperative union in Oromia Region with thousands smallholder farmers members producing barley, has bought the state owned Assela malt factory investing 1.3 billion birr (about $46 million).

Source: News Business Ethiopia February 26, 2019 19:18 UTC