The financial returns from maize production were higher than coffee in many place, triggering a shift away from coffee production in many cases. The low international coffee price simply aggravated the problem of incentive. This is largely due to the sharp deterioration in the performance of other export items. Pulses and oilseed, account for about 10.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent of the total food grain production area. Both area cultivated and production of pulses and oilseed have tended to decline over the last two decades .
Domestic demand is high as pulses are directly consumed food lord .
Similarly many oilseeds are consumed directly or processed into vegetable oil. Pulses and oilseeds as well as oilseed cake played a key role, second only to coffee in Ethiopia's export in the early 1970s. Cotton is produced with the help of irrigations in all cases except Ababo. The state farms cultivated 35,741 hectares and produced 85,143 ton of seed cotton in 1985. Since 1985, however, the trend has been one of declining with cultivated area and production falling to 34,350 hectares and 44,000 tons by 1990.