News AGRA Report Spotlights Growing Food Insecurity, Surging Commodity Prices in Ethiopia
May 16, 2026
Over 100,000 South Sudanese refugees have arrived in Gambella since March
A report published by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) reveals the scale of the Iran-US war’s impact on food security in Ethiopia, with agricultural commodities sharply affected by rising international prices for fuel and fertilizer.
The Food Security Monitoring Report from AGRA, a non-profit founded in 2006 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, also highlights the challenges and risks posed by a renewed influx of South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia.
The report, which cites data up to April 2026, cautions that food security across East Africa remains fragile and uneven, with conflict, displacement, high prices, and supply-side shocks sustaining both widespread and localized crises.
“Ethiopia continues to face the most acute pressures, with emergency conditions in parts of East Hararghe and among newly arrived South Sudanese refugees in Gambella, while large areas of northern and pastoral regions remain in crisis, driven by conflict, fuel shortages linked to Middle East developments, elevated food prices, rainfall deficits, and weak livestock productivity,” it reads.
Over 100,000 fresh refugees fleeing conflict in South Sudan have arrived in Gambella since March, according to UNHCR’s latest report. They add to the more than 1.1 million refugees already taking shelter in Ethiopia, and heighten concerns tied to funding shortfalls.
In October 2025, the World Food Programme (WFP), the sole humanitarian assistance provider for over 1.1 million refugees and millions of IDPs in Ethiopia, announced it was cutting rations for close to 800,000 refugees in camps across Ethiopia to less than 1,000 calories a day due to a lack of funding.
Nearly half of all refugees in Ethiopia are located in a handful of camps in Gambella.
The AGRA report notes that between 16 and 20 million people in Ethiopia are facing acute food insecurity.
“Newly arrived South Sudanese refugees in Gambela face ongoing emergency conditions marked by critical malnutrition and limited access to aid, as insecurity, fuel shortages, and likely pipeline breaks increasingly disrupt assistance delivery. At the same time, widespread crisis outcomes are expected to persist across eastern Tigray, northeastern Amhara, northern Afar, and the pastoral south and southeast,” it reads.
The report notes a 60 percent year-on-year increase in the price of maize, while wheat prices have jumped by five percent between March and April.
AGRA cautions the effects of the US-Israel-Iran conflict are likely to worsen across, particularly in import-dependent countries and in relation to fertilizer and fuel prices. The cost of urea, the most common kind of fertilizer, has already jumped by nearly 50 percent, while DAP has seen a 15 percent rise since the conflict began.
“Eastern Africa’s staple food commodity prices, particularly maize and rice, show heightened volatility and generally elevated levels, driven by a mix of seasonal supply changes, strong demand, and structural and macroeconomic pressures,” the report reads.
Data published by the Central Statistics Service (CSS) for the month of April corroborates the findings. The Service reports food inflation is moving upwards while general inflation is contracting.
The year-on-year inflation rate of the Food and Non-alcoholic component of the consumer price index (CPI) for April stood at 13.5 percent. This implies that costs have increased by 13.5 percent since last April, with the CSS attributing the surge to increases in the average prices of vegetables (11.9 percent), meat (18.1 percent), sugar (29 percent), milk (15.6 percent), oils and fats (18 percent), and bread and cereals (five percent).
The Service puts the headline inflation rate for April at 11.7 percent, down from 14.4 percent in April 2025.