Agriculture, the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, determines the growth of all other sectors. There have been policy focuses by the Ethiopian government on encouraging productivity growth in rural smallholder agricultural intensification. To overcome food problems through crop production and intensification, the Federal government initiated the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP I and II) emphasizing on basic direction of agricultural development such as extensive utilization of human labor, proper use of agricultural land, combination diversification and specialization with four priority areas namely irrigation, fertilizer, technology and infrastructure development. Even though GTP I achieved encouraging performance in increasing production and the productivity of cereals is improving gradually, the productivity in GTP II achieved is insignificant. Distorted macroeconomic policies, weaknesses in implementing the policy itself, policy challenges for practical implementations, and lack of public participation in policy formulation processes are believed to have undermined the contribution of rural development smallholder policies could have made. Therefore, the overall aim of this review paper was to explore and assess the possible agricultural intensification policy challenges of Ethiopia in GTP I and GTP II of the Ethiopian government. The method used was desk review technique using secondary data sources and it was summarized and concluded by using published research articles. Most of the research results reviewed showed clear evidence of the many weaknesses of the agricultural intensification policy of Ethiopia that made this particular sector unable to be productive even though the government tried to implement its policies and strategies in both the GTP periods. Therefore, the government of Ethiopia should have to shortlist and avoid all agricultural policy challenges hampering and weakening smallholder farm productivity to be insignificant and aggravating the issue of food insecurity in the country at the end of GTP II period. Thus, the government should revise and implement the agricultural policy of the country
