Giving Compass' Take:

• Peyton Fleming at Food Tank writes on the food crisis in Ethiopia stemming from little to no access to cold storage to preserve foods. He reports that it is nearly impossible if you’re a small individual farmer to save their produce, meats, and milk with the lack of electricity and refrigeration.

• Children in Ethiopia are hit the hardest by poor-quality diets. What can donors and aid relief workers do to help this?

• Learn about women's cooperatives in rural Ethiopia. 

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Professor Yetenayet Bekele Tola cringed as he patrolled the nation’s largest fruit and vegetable market recently. Mounds of lettuce and swiss chard were wilting. Bananas were bruised and blackened.

There wasn’t a refrigerator to be found to keep the crops fresh.

For Dr. Yetenayet, who studies food science and technology at Jimma University, the damaged food is a pungent reminder of a broken and fragmented food distribution system that contributes mightily to the country’s severe malnutrition problems.

“There is no cold room storage whatsoever,” Dr. Yetenayet said. “The way fruits and vegetables are handled is not up to standard. It leads to lots of spoilage. The food can’t get to people and it’s less nutritious.”

While agricultural production of fruits and vegetables in Africa’s second most populous country has surged in recent decades, millions of Ethiopians are still not eating them. Those suffering the most are the rural poor living beyond the reach of electricity and refrigeration. Most of what they eat are cereal crops; fruits and vegetables are too expensive and are considered a luxury.

Read the full article on getting nutritious food to more people in Ethiopia by Peyton Fleming at Food Tank.