Mike Thomson BBC, Addis Ababa

The UN's World Food Programme is warning that the number of people needing food aid in Ethiopia is likely to soar unless new schemes to manage water prove successful.

Within 25 years, 50m Ethiopians could need food aid

A drought earlier this year left 14 million dependent on food aid.

But warnings last November that Ethiopia's latest drought would dwarf the one in 1984, which left two-million dead, led to the biggest ever response to a food relief appeal.

Around $800m worth of aid has poured into the country and saved millions of lives.

But despite this and the recent arrival of rains in some areas, the World Food Programme claims the country's population growth of 3% a year combined with the growing frequency of droughts is leading to what its country director, Georgia Shaver, calls an "explosive situation".

She warns that unless a range of water management and land reform schemes prove successful, the international community will find it increasingly difficult to cope with the likely scale of future crises.

The Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute agrees.

It estimates that if current trends continue, 50 million people in Ethiopia may be reliant on food aid by the year 2028.