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Moving Gishta into the Global Economy

The gishta plant With the advances in modern technology and the invention of faster planes and bigger ships, the world has become significantly smaller. Markets have grown to expand past the borders of countries as globalization becomes more widespread. Products from one country can be sold virtually anywhere in the world, as long as they can find a market. Ethiopia, a poverty-stricken country in Eastern Africa, joined the global market by exporting coffee. When coffee sales were low, farmers began to export qat to supplement their incomes. Ethiopia now exports several different products, 60% of these being agricultural goods [6].

Although Ethiopia’s government has been trying to promote global trade in the country, it has not addressed some key points that would make the leap into the global market more successful. It has been suggested that to be more successful, the country should try to diversify export commodities more than they have been doing. They should also concentrate on expanding their external markets and working towards a gradual transition to exporting high-value goods [7].

A popular fruit in Ethiopia is the gishta, or wild apple custard. Although this plant has proven to have many beneficial uses in Ethiopia, it is currently not one of the fruits being exported. The main reason for this is that it is currently only being grown by small farmers. They generally do not have the resources to export what they grow [12]. However, by using technology, a website could easily be constructed where these farmers could sell their products in the global market. With access to the global economy, the farmers would be able to increase their production of gishta, and ultimately raise their standard of living. This would also diversify the products currently being exported which should help the country’s success in the global market.