According to TED, a conference bringing together people from Technology, Entertainment, Design, Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin has  ambitious vision to establish the first ever commodities market in Ethiopia, Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, (ECEX). Her plan would create wealth, minimize risk for farmers and turn the world's largest recipient of food aid into a regional food basket. "There is no place in the world and no time in history that small farmers have had to bear the burden of risk that African farmers bear today," Gabre-Madhin says. "But I'm not here to lament or wring my hands. I'm here to tell you that change is in the air." She hopes the first bell will ring in December, in time for Ethiopia's wheat harvest.
 



 
 
Last December, She said “the idea of an organized marketplace - in which order and integrity prevail, which serves all market players equally, and where transactions are conducted in as efficient and low-cost a manner as possible - is an idea whose time has truly come in Ethiopia.”

 

In addition to wheat, ECEX will deal in maize, teff (a local staple), coffee, pea-beans and sesame.