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Encouraging agricultural development activities in Central Region Mr. Asrat Haile, representative of the Department of Agriculture and Land in the Central Region, reported that encouraging agricultural development activities have been carried out in the region over the past years of Independence. Mr. Asrat went on to say that, in the effort to ensure water supply to the public, 126 water wells have been dug in 84 villages, 59 water reservoirs have been constructed, 209 water distribution centers have been put in place, and 222 km of water pipelines have been installed. Regarding the development of fish farming, Mr. Asrat said that freshwater fish farming was introduced in 2019, and that currently 11 cooperative associations are actively engaged in fish farming and distribution. Mr. Asrat also said that, in 1998, about 37 thousand 600 quintals of vegetables were produced from 430 hectares of land, and that in 2025 the figure increased significantly, with over 190 thousand quintals harvested from 1 thousand 313 hectares of land. The number of dairy cows, which was about 2 thousand in the early years of Independence, has currently increased to 6 thousand, while annual milk production has increased from 2 million to 9 million liters. Regarding water and soil conservation, Mr. Asrat said that more than 99 thousand km of terraces of various types, as well as over 166 thousand cubic meters of water catchments, have been constructed, and that the number of dams has increased from 52 to 133. Mr. Asrat also said that the Central Region registers an average annual rainfall of 400 to 600 mm, and that currently 91% of the over 36 thousand hectares of arable land is being cultivated.

How Eritrea Is Building Food Security One Plot at a Time: The Quiet Revolution of “Nirqah” By Ghidewon Abay Asmerom (Red Sea Beacon) Confessions of Linguistic Ignorance: The first time I encountered the word ንርቃሕ (Nirqah) was on Eri-TV. It appeared near the end of a public awareness campaign that, I must admit, I had not been paying much attention to from the beginning. Then, almost as if to make sure it stayed with the audience, two actors repeated the word with deliberate emphasis. I heard it clearly, but it meant absolutely nothing to me. It simply did not exist within the boundaries of my own Tigrinya vocabulary. At the time, I was in Eritrea, away from the dictionaries and language references I normally turn to whenever a word challenges me. Instinctively, my mind searched for something familiar. The closest words that came to mind were ንርቓሕ and ንርቋሕ, yet neither made any sense in the context of what I was seeing on the screen: a man and a woman standing proudly beside cultivating farm plots, their posture suggesting not confusion or struggle, but accomplishment, ownership, and quiet pride. Curiosity got the better of me. I asked questions, searched for clues, and eventually learned that the word challenging my Tigrinya was not a conventional word at all, but an abbreviation. I was handed a brochure explaining what ንርቃሕ stood for. Once I understood what those letters represented, my confusion quickly turned into admiration. What had first appeared to be an unfamiliar word was, in fact, the name of a quiet agricultural revolution unfolding across Eritrea—one plot, one household, and one community at a time. Introduction Hunger is not merely an accident of nature. It is also a failure of systems, priorities, and execution. In a world capable of producing enough food for every human being, the persistence of hunger is not simply tragic; it is an indictment. When the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015, Goal 2: Zero Hunger became one of humanity’s clearest commitments. Yet as 2030 approaches, much of the world remains trapped between rhetoric and implementation. Eritrea has chosen a different approach. Rather than treating Zero Hunger as an abstract global aspiration, it has reframed it as a national obligation rooted in discipline, self-reliance, and practical execution. At the center of this effort is ንርቃሕ (Nirqah)—“ንኡስን ርቡሕን ቃጽዖ ሕርሻ” or the Small and Productive Farm Plot (SPFP) initiative—a deceptively simple but structurally significant model that seeks to build food security plot by plot, household by household. This is not a program designed for visibility. It is designed for measurable outcomes. Under the national framework “Safe and Nutritious Food for Everyone, Everywhere,” the Ministry of Agriculture launched a comprehensive 2024–2028 strategy focused on strengthening household food security and agricultural productivity. The strategy combines several complementary approaches, including exemplary “Pillar Farmers,” and the Minimum Integrated Household Agricultural Package (MIHAP) that started in 2013, small- and medium-scale commercial farming, and the SPFP/Nirqah initiative. ንርቃሕ-nirqah (SPFP) Architecture: 1000 m2, Three Seasons, Multiple Harvests The SPFP model specifically targets subsistence farming households in Eritrea’s arid and semi-arid rain-fed regions. Built around a carefully managed 1,000-square-meter plot (approximately one-quarter acre), the system integrates cereals, pulses, oil crops, vegetables, sweet potatoes, and, where possible, livestock support through crop residues. The objective is not merely to cultivate land, but to maximize productivity through disciplined management, row planting, compost-based soil enrichment, improved seeds, crop rotation, and supplemental irrigation when available. In this project, the entire 1,000-square-meter plot is planted with cereals appropriate to the local environment during the rainy season. In the second and third production cycles, the plot is divided into five subplots. The largest subplot, measuring 800 square meters, is used for rotational cultivation of pulses or oil crops, depending on the season and ecological conditions. The remaining four subplots, each measuring 50 square meters, are allocated for sweet potatoes and a variety of vegetables to improve household nutrition and diversify production. The model is adapted to Eritrea’s diverse agroecological zones. In the central and northern highlands, farmers cultivate wheat or barley during the rainy season from July to October. During the second cycle, from November to February, the main plot is rotated into pulses such as chickpeas, peas, and fava beans, while smaller sections produce sweet potatoes and vegetables through irrigation. A third cycle from March to June introduces oil crops such as niger seed, flaxseed, and sunflower. In the eastern lowlands, where rainfall occurs between September and December, farmers cultivate maize during the rainy season, followed by pulses and vegetables in the subsequent months. In the western lowlands, particularly in Gash-Barka and parts of Anseba, maize dominates the rainy season, while pulses and vegetables follow during the cooler months. Successful implementation depends on intensive land preparation and management. Plots are leveled and terraced where necessary to improve water retention and reduce erosion. Farmers are encouraged to use organic fertilizers and compost, with approximately 20–25 quintals recommended per plot. Improved seed varieties, row planting, and coordinated crop rotation are also emphasized to improve yields while minimizing weeds and pests. Most labor—watering, aeration, and weeding—is carried out by household members, making the system labor-intensive but highly manageable on small plots. At its core, Nirqah challenges one of agriculture’s oldest assumptions: that productivity depends primarily on large landholdings. Eritrea’s experience suggests otherwise. Productivity, the program argues, is determined less by scale than by precision, management, and efficiency. Scaling Food Security: Evidence from the Field The first phase of the SPFP initiative was launched across Maekel, Anseba, Debub, and Gash-Barka, regions benefiting from summer rainfall. More than 12,000 households participated during this initial phase. Reported yields reached as high as 9.7 quintals of wheat, 9.5 quintals of maize, 7.3 quintals of sorghum, and 4.2 quintals of barley per 1,000-square-meter plot, demonstrating the model’s potential to generate substantial output from relatively small areas of land. Eritrea also possesses a significant agricultural base overall, with an estimated 2.1 million hectares of potential rain-fed farmland and approximately 600,000 hectares suitable for irrigation. Within this broader capacity, the Ministry of Agriculture has set a national production target for 2028 aimed at balancing agricultural output across cereals (50%), pulses (25%), and oil crops (25%). Nirqah functions as one of the principal mechanisms through which these targets are being operationalized at the household and village level. What gives the program credibility is not policy language, but evidence from the field. Farmers across Eritrea’s different ecological zones have demonstrated that the model is adaptable, replicable, and capable of significantly increasing productivity. Exemplary “Pillar Farmers,” such as Bereket Tekeste and others, have achieved yields far exceeding those of traditionally managed fields. More importantly, households are beginning to move beyond subsistence production into market participation, strengthening rural incomes and local economies. So far, more than 33,000 farm plots have been cultivated under the Nirqah program, while over 2,500 households have fully implemented the integrated package, including crop production, village chickens, and modern beehives. The Central Region has emerged as one of the strongest performers, with the sub-zones of Gala-Nefhi, Serejeka, and Berikh receiving national recognition. Gala-Nefhi ranked first nationally after implementing the program on 4,431 plots, introducing 1,641 modern beehives, and distributing more than 40,000 village chickens. Serejeka, which ranked second nationally, enabled approximately 4,700 farmers to implement the program through coordinated training and technical follow-up. Looking ahead, the Ministry of Agriculture aims to deepen implementation further by encouraging universal row planting, expanding the use of village chickens and modern beehives, and increasing yields to between 35 and 85 quintals per hectare depending on local conditions. The long-term objective is clear: to create self-sufficient farming households capable not only of feeding themselves, but also of stabilizing local markets and strengthening national food security. In Eritrea’s broader march toward Zero Hunger, the most compelling evidence is not found in reports or projections, but in thousands of highly productive small plots across the country where farmers themselves are demonstrating that agricultural transformation is not a distant aspiration, but an unfolding reality. The broader lesson emerging from Eritrea’s experience is both clear and uncomfortable: hunger persists not because solutions are unknown, but because they are rarely implemented with consistency, discipline, and local adaptation. Eritrea’s approach suggests that food security is achieved not through dependence or endless declarations, but through sustained execution at the household level. If a country with limited rainfall, constrained resources, and difficult environmental conditions can move deliberately toward Zero Hunger through practical, community-based systems, then the argument that hunger is inevitable begins to collapse. What remains is not a question of possibility, but of will. Eritrea is not waiting for 2030. It is attempting to build it. The Voices Behind Eritrea’s Quiet Farming Revolution (Taken from Small and Productive Farm Plot (SPFP) and its Promising Results. A Monthly Newsletter Prepared by the Public Relations Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Issue No 82, April 2025) Across Eritrea’s farming communities, the Small and Productive Farm Plot model is being tested not as theory, but as lived practice. In Belezza, in the Serejeqa Subzone of the Zoba Maekel, Bereket Tekeste, who was raised in a farming family and knew the limits of traditional methods, began experimenting after the Ministry of Agriculture promoted row planting and organic fertilization. He is referred to as the “Father of Nirqah”. Starting with only 100 grams of seed on a 3-by-2 meter plot, he harvested 9.1 kilograms. Encouraged by that result, he expanded to a 1,000-square-meter plot and produced nearly 9 quintals of wheat. “I saw the difference between what we were doing and what was possible,” he reflected. His success later earned recognition at the International Conference on Wheat and Maize and established him as one of the early pioneers of the model. Similar results are being reported elsewhere. In Adi Gebru, of Berikh Subzone, also of Zoba Maekel, Amanuel Yohannes captured the change in simple comparative terms, explaining that what farmers now harvest from less than 1,000 square meters is equivalent to what they once obtained from five or six separate farmlands. In Kudo Midri, near Mai Edaga in Dekemhare Subzone, of Zoba Debu, Tsegay Berhe made the same point with figures, noting that yields once measured by the hectare are now being achieved from a 1,000-square-meter plot, with his farm producing about 6 quintals. Together, these experiences show that the heart of SPFP is not land expansion, but precision, discipline, and efficiency. Women farmers are also demonstrating the strength of the model. In Mai Lafo, in Adi Quala Subzone, of Zoba Debub, Selam Birhane Emba transformed her plot through careful land preparation, row planting, compost use, and organized vegetable cultivation. Before joining the program, she explained, production depended mainly on exhausting labor. Under the new approach, technique became as important as effort, allowing her to harvest 5 quintals from 1,000 square meters. In Mehabesh, in the Ela-Berid subzone of Zoba Anseba, Letebirhan Mehari challenged the assumption that wheat could only grow in the highlands. On a 250-square-meter plot in difficult terrain, she produced 2.5 quintals in her first attempt while also diversifying into vegetables and pulses, showing how new knowledge can expand both production and imagination. Institutional support has been equally important. In Adi Dirar Ayni, also from Adi Quala Subzone, of Zoba Debub, Mengisteab Gebru harvested more than 9 quintals from less than 1,000 square meters after receiving 13 kilograms of selected wheat seed from the Ministry of Agriculture. In Mai Edaga, Bahlbi Teklay produced 6 quintals from 800 square meters and pointed to the model’s economic promise: with a slightly larger area, farmers can move beyond household consumption and enter the market. He also emphasized that the system is accessible to women, who can manage small, intensive plots more effectively than larger scattered fields. The experience of Yosief Teklemariam in Qusmo Dongolo, in the Southern Region, further confirms the importance of training and technical guidance. Despite having no prior experience with the method, he harvested more than 9.7 quintals of wheat from one-tenth of a hectare and 4 quintals of chickpea from less than 9 percent of a hectare. His conclusion is direct: practical consultancy services are crucial, especially for farmers in remote areas. Taken together, these farmers’ experiences reveal a clear pattern. SPFP is changing expectations by proving that productivity does not depend primarily on the size of land, but on how carefully land is prepared, planted, nourished, managed, and supported. What began as small experiments has become evidence of a larger agricultural shift: Eritrean farmers are learning to produce more from less, move from subsistence toward surplus, and turn disciplined small-plot farming into a practical pathway toward food security. #Eritrea