East African agriculture and climate change: Eritrea

Located in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea has a long coastline on the Red Sea. The country has varied topography, rainfall, and climate, with altitude ranging from 60 to more than 3,000 meters above sea level. Eritrea’s total population is about 5.27 million people, of whom 50–60 percent live in highlands that comprise only about 10 percent of the country’s total area. Agriculture is still an important sector for Eritrea, employing about half of the population and producing about 20 percent of GDP. Eritrea has several agricultural systems: rainfed cereal and pulses; semi-commercial and periurban agriculture; small-scale irrigated horticulture; commercial farming; agropastoral rainfed farming; and agropastoral spate irrigation systems. The major food crops grown in Eritrea are sorghum, millet and barley