Designing a World Free of Hunger: How Semere Kidane Is Tackling Ethiopia’s Food Crisis

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Semere Kidane: Another thing that makes me really sad is the fish. In Gambella, and now with the Renaissance Dam, we have an unbelievable amount of fish. It's sad that our children grow up without eating fish while we have so much of it. The vitamins it provides are essential for their growth. The only reason this happens is the lack of cold logistics. There is no cold logistics transport. It's not just our country; cooling and heating systems are almost the engine of any country. Why? Because if we cannot fully receive and preserve what the hardworking farmer produces, that farmer will not produce the following year.

Tewodros Worku: If I go somewhere in Sweden, I shouldn't be unable to afford it…

Semere Kidane: In that country, whether you are a citizen or not, they don't allow you to go hungry. How? You might wear nice clothes or you might not, but your stomach is guaranteed just like any citizen. This is what needs to be the case here. I might have much less economically than you, but my stomach should be full just like yours. To be honest, Swedish farmers are very hardworking. But without a doubt, I can close my eyes and say our farmers are ten times more hardworking. First, what a country needs to do is figure out how to make food abundant, how to provide enough food for the masses, and how to fulfill the basic needs of the stomach. That is the foundational work I was focusing on.

Tewodros Worku: Greetings to our viewers. Welcome to our family program. Thank you for being with us. Today, we have brought another guest to our program. Our guest today has experience both from home and abroad, and we will discuss many issues. Our guest is Mr. Semere Kidane. He lived in Sweden for many years, and it has been exactly eight years since he returned to Ethiopia. Over these eight years, he has been working on various projects. We will talk about him and his work. To summarize today's topic based on what I gathered: simplifying life, making food available affordably, reducing waste, and improving the shelf life of food so that food waste is no longer a major problem. Thank you for coming. Let's get to know each other first.

Semere Kidane: Thank you.

Tewodros Worku: Okay, let's get to know you. Please tell us about your childhood, your life, and why we are meeting today. Let's start with who Mr. Semere is.

Semere Kidane: My name is Semere Kidane. I was born in Addis Ababa, in the Lancha/Kera area, and I grew up there. During my childhood, due to the political problems during the Derg era, I went to Sweden. After over forty years in Sweden, studying and working, the technologies I learned and the work I did are all tied to Sweden. I have 14 siblings. I grew up with my father Kidane and my mother Shashwork Gebrekristos. I went to Sweden and learned Swedish technology.

Tewodros Worku: How old were you when you left the country? How was Addis Ababa back then? And how was the Sweden you found when you arrived?

Semere Kidane: At that time, we fled through Sudan, facing many hardships before entering Sweden. The Sweden of that time was very beautiful and treated people exceptionally well. The country was governed by the Social Democrats, focusing on equality, human rights, and the standard of living. They welcomed us, taught us, and I learned a lot. What I love most about Sweden is the equal opportunity. Basic needs like housing and food are provided, and education is free. Seeing how the country opens its doors and treats you with an equality mentality is amazing. I stayed there a long time, learned, worked, and served. Eventually, the thought came to try returning to my own country.

Tewodros Worku: So you left Ethiopia at a young age?

Semere Kidane: I was fifteen years old when I left.

Tewodros Worku: Fifteen years old. How many years in total were you in Sweden?

Semere Kidane: About forty-five years. I arrived around 1977 or 1978.

Tewodros Worku: So your time in Sweden is much longer than your time in Ethiopia. Let's talk about your education and how you reached your current professional level. What did you study and work on?

Semere Kidane: When I first arrived in Sweden, I studied the language and then went to a technical high school. I had a strong interest in mechanics since childhood, inspired partly by my brilliant cousin, Samson Araya. I specialized in mechanics and hydraulics initially but later shifted to cooling systems. The main reason I focused on cooling systems was seeing its massive impact on food preservation and post-harvest shelf life. The field is called cooling and heating. Heating is also crucial because Sweden is very cold. The Swedish education system opens many doors, providing a broad technological perspective. I advanced deeply into cooling and heating systems.

Tewodros Worku: Heating and cooling might seem like a small thing to us, but it's a massive field globally. Since we live in a comfortable climate, our systems aren't built around this, and our logistics lag because of it. How should we understand the scale of this?

Semere Kidane: There is nothing in the world that cooling and heating doesn't touch; it's almost the engine of the world. The biggest factor is food. Temperature controls the food economy. Here, cooling is often just associated with air conditioning. But it's vital for food preservation. Ethiopia produces a lot of vegetables and fruits, but we lose 43% to 45% post-harvest simply due to a lack of cold logistics and cold storage. This severely impacts our economy. Furthermore, cooling systems are tied to laboratories, medicine, vaccines, and central systems. Heating is also essential, not just for surviving winter, but for food dehydration. Dehydrated food can last three to five years without losing nutritional value. In Sweden, if a farmer produces food, the system ensures none of it is wasted, using freezing, drying, and even converting waste into protein (BSF) for animal feed. While food waste in Europe is near zero, here it is around 41%. We have massive fish resources in Gambella but no cold logistics to distribute it, meaning our children lack essential nutrients.

Tewodros Worku: What specific sectors did you work in after your education?

Semere Kidane: I started with kitchen refrigeration systems for restaurants and large hotels. In Sweden, the government highly subsidizes cooling systems to stabilize food prices. We built large walk-in freezers capable of storing tens to hundreds of thousands of kilos of meat and fish. Later, I moved into laboratory and hospital work, building specialized cold rooms for biology and chemistry research, such as at the Karolinska Institute. I also worked on emergency response (ÖCB), which led me to build massive, highly secure cooling systems for computer server farms. We also built portable cooling units sent via NGOs for relief work in countries like Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Tewodros Worku: With high security as well?

Semere Kidane: Yes, server farms required walls that blocked telecom signals to prevent data theft, so we had to design highly efficient cooling within those constraints. We also built power backup systems to prevent any dips.

Tewodros Worku: Before discussing Ethiopia, you mentioned a project addressing malnutrition, which is a huge problem in Africa. Tell us about that story.

Semere Kidane: I can't discuss the military aspects legally, but I can talk about the concept.

Tewodros Worku: Let's discuss the idea.

Semere Kidane: When I entered technical high school, I was shocked to find I had to take cooking classes. Coming from our culture, I refused. The director told me, "You study, eat, and get books for free because we are investing in you. We want you healthy to work until you are 65, and the key to that is a balanced diet." That changed my perspective. I learned nutrition and later volunteered with organizations helping addicts. We made highly nutritious cold soups. Using my technical skills, I built machines to mass-produce these soups efficiently.

Tewodros Worku: For saving money?

Semere Kidane: Yes, for economic efficiency. We created concentrated, nutritious soups packed in plastic. Just add half a liter of hot water, and you have a full meal. I always thought about how this could help Ethiopia during emergencies. A truck carrying this concentrated food could feed dozens of times more people than a truck carrying standard food or water. It could be mixed with injera to feed even more. We could process our wasted vegetables into such durable products. In Sweden, the system ensures no one starves; we need that safety net here.

Tewodros Worku: Half a liter for how many people?

Semere Kidane: Mixed with injera, it expands and can feed up to six people due to its high nutritional density. I kept thinking about applying this to Ethiopia's logistical challenges and food waste. We throw away so much, but we could process it all. I returned to Ethiopia after my mother passed away. Seeing the reality here shocked me—the gap between the wealthy and the poor, and the massive waste. I decided to try to make a difference here. In Sweden, if an initiative brings economic impact or creates jobs, the government fully backs it with tax-free machinery and loans. The bureaucracy here, however, makes it much harder.

Semere Kidane: When I traveled around Meki, I was shocked to see fertile land where tomatoes were just dumped and rotting.

Tewodros Worku: Yes.

Semere Kidane: Farmers threw them away because the market price dropped below the cost of transport. I saw the same with fish at Lake Koka and onions in Bahir Dar. If we simply processed these—freezing or dehydrating them—they could last for years without spoiling.

Tewodros Worku: With their nutritional content intact?

Semere Kidane: Absolutely intact. We could dehydrate tomatoes, onions, and potatoes. We are blessed with solar power and biomass energy (like the Prosopis/Woyane Zaf tree), which we could use to run dehydrators efficiently.

Tewodros Worku: Yes, traditionally called Woyane Zaf.

Semere Kidane: Yes, it burns like diesel and is a massive energy source. We could even dry our coffee better using controlled solar dehydrators instead of traditional methods that lower its quality.

Tewodros Worku: How can we solve this massive waste practically, like the tomatoes in Meki or fish in Koka?

Semere Kidane: We need processing centers right where the food is harvested. We have abundant manpower. We should set up freezers and dehydrators powered by solar, wind, or biomass at the source. For example, 12 kilos of tomatoes can be reduced to a small packet of powder, stabilizing the market year-round. Dehydrating onions reduces their transport volume by a factor of thirty. I saw a farmer in Sululta crying because he couldn't sell his massive tomato harvest or pay his workers. This means he won't plant next year. This breaks the country's food supply. We could sustainably harvest 17 million kilos of fish from Gambella if we only had the cold logistics to transport it.

Tewodros Worku: Mhm.

Semere Kidane: In Sweden, they say "A hungry man is an angry man." A country will never have peace if its farmers are not economically strong. We must support our farmers by buying everything they produce and processing it so it doesn't spoil. In Sweden, the government facilitates this with tax-free machinery. We desperately need technology transfer here.

Tewodros Worku: You mentioned our farmers are ten times harder working. How did you verify this?

Semere Kidane: I traveled to rural areas and asked farmers why they don't produce more. They asked me, "Who will buy it? Who will transport it?" They intentionally limit their production to what they can manage locally because any surplus just rots without logistics or processing. Telling them to produce more without providing a market is cruel; it gives false hope. It's like giving sight to a blind man only to take it away again. Despite the immense bureaucratic hurdles, I am trying to build small processing centers to prove this works. Our farmers are incredibly capable, but the system fails them. We have the land and the manpower; we just need to fix the system and introduce the right technology.