Ethiopian Grain Stores

Before the famous BBC report on the famine, the Ethiopian Relief Commissioner struggled in vain to get food aid.

One of his problems was that previous aid was spoiled because of lack of grain storage buildings. Without International help, he scraped up enough dollars in March 1984 to buy British Steel Grain Stores from REIDsteel.

Transported via Djibouti (on a railway line on which REIDsteel built all the stations in 1937), the twenty grain storage buildings (each 30m by 70m) arrived pick-a-stick fashion at the site.

A crew of several thousand Ethiopians (most of whom were picking up rocks from surrounding hills to form the elevated floors) put together these REIDsteel grain stores in amazingly quick time: 5 months from order to completion!

The first doors were fitted on the day of the first delivery of Western aid.

 

 

Grain store buildings in Ethiopia