Horticultural Crops Production Potentials and Challenges Assessment in Arsi Zone, Oromia-Ethiopia

In Ethiopia Agriculture is the most important sector, crucial for the country's food security and the livelihoods of nearly 85% of its people, and serving as the engine for the country's development strategy, Agriculture Development Led Industrialization. It continues to be the most dominant aspect of the Ethiopian economy, accounting for nearly 46% of GDP, 73% of employment, and nearly 80% of foreign export earnings (ATA, 2014). Having all these importance, agriculture continues to face a number of problems and challenges. The major ones are adverse climatic conditions, lack of appropriate land use system resulting in soil and other natural resources degradation, limited use of improved agricultural technologies, the predominance of subsistence agriculture and lack and/or absence of business oriented agricultural production system, limited or no access to market facilities resulting in low participation of the smallholder farmers in value chain or value addition of their produces (Bezabih, 2010).