land reform - land settlement and cooperatives (2024)

Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute, Addis Ababa,Ethiopia

We have used an extensive data set from Ethiopia to studythe country's existing land tenure system from the perspective of farmers and toassess the impacts that this system currently has on agricultural developmentand implications for poverty reduction at large. The data show that access toland has considerable influence on household income and food security, to theextent that small farm sizes appear to be one of the major constraints for farmdevelopment and intensification efforts. Farmers placed more emphasis on tenuresecurity rather than on type of ownership per se. A study of farmers' perceptionshows that they feel largely insecure on their current holdings. Ways must besought to provide better tenure security of land holdings. Given the growingpopulation pressure, increasing number of landless households and limited accessto land, encouraging the development of the nonagricultural employment sector iscrucial.

BACKGROUND

The land-holding system in most developing countries is notsimply an economic affair. It is very much intertwined with the people's cultureand identity. This partly explains why land-related issues usually generateintense emotional reactions. Obviously, for rural residents of most developingcountries, land is the primary means of production used to generate a livelihoodfor a family. It is also the main asset that farmers have to accumulate wealthand, equally importantly, is what they can transfer in the form of wealth tofuture generations. Accordingly, the size of the land that they own and thelevel of security they have in their holdings affect a household's income, andtheir incentive to work and to invest. Accordingly, land policy in developingcountries is a crucial, albeit sensitive, part of the overall development policythat governments need to consider if rapid economic growth and povertyalleviation are to be achieved.

Although there is wide recognition regarding the importance ofland policy in agrarian development, there is no clear and universallyapplicable blueprint as to what an appropriate land policy should be. This ispartly because the efficacy of land policy in encouraging agriculturaldevelopment depends on sociocultural and geographical variables thatsignificantly differ from country to country. In a number of cases, even withinone country, various types of landholding system exist depending upon historicalfactors and the farming systems that have prevailed in the different regions.Despite these differences, however, using established theories, behavioralassumptions regarding economic agents and on experience from other countries,researchers have tried to define certain basic principles and thereby achieve aland policy that will generate higher levels of productivity in agriculturewhile also maintaining considerations of equity. However, even these principleswill change with time as more information is gathered from othercountries.

If we take the 1975 World Bank land policy paper as a startingpoint, three basic principles should be considered in informing any land policy.At that time, the World Bank believed that (a) owneroperated family farms wereefficient and thus desirable, (b) there should be freely operating land marketsto permit land transfers to more efficient and productive users and (c) therewas a need for a more equitable distribution of assets (Deininger andBinswanger, 1999). These principles are still considered to be largely valid.However, based on experience from various countries that have subsequentlyimplemented land reforms, a number of amendments were made to this positionincluding: (a) a recognition, under certain circ*mstances, that communal tenurecould be a cost-effective mechanism for land allocation compared with formaltitling; and (b) that formal titling, when desirable, should be evaluated interms of both its potential efficiency benefits and its implications for equityand the significance of expanded land rental markets on productivity andagrarian development in general. Although the benefits of formal land marketshave been recognized, its full potential can be secured only if other factormarkets are equally and effectively operational in rural areas. Recent researchhas also recognized the importance of decentralized administration ofland-related issues. What is significant in these findings is that whereas thereare certain agreed objectives (such as efficiency and equity) and principles(security of tenure) that should inform land policy, the modalities of alandholding system in a specific country could and should take in to account thespecific conditions prevailing in that country in order to achieve the statedobjectives of providing a decent living to the farming population.

One development in the last few decades that has beenrecognized is the degree to which the importance of overtly ideologicalconsiderations have been relegated to the background in land policy debates.This should certainly help in allowing a more reasoned discussion aboutappropriate land tenure arrangements that take into account the specificcirc*mstances of each country; in addition this will reduce any politicizationof the issues thereby overly complicating the search for a viable solution.Accordingly, with ideology consigned to the background, many countries are nowboldly addressing the issue of land reforms. In the last two decades, mostcountries in sub-Saharan Africa have been variously undertaking land reform inone way or another. The aims of most of these reforms have been to promoteproductivity in agriculture and thereby generate rapid economic growth,encourage a more sustainable management and reduce poverty. In relation toreducing rural poverty, access to land is recognized in most of these reforms asof special significance in the absence of alternative employment opportunitiesin the non-agricultural sectors of the economy (Toulmin and Quan,2000).

Ethiopia is one of the few countries in Africa that has notmade significant changes in its basic land policy since the radical land reformof 1975; exceptions to this have been occasional land redistributions toaccommodate the growing population and, in some instances (such as the Amhararegion's redistribution of 1996), to redistribute the land that the governmentfeels was unjustly acquired by former government cadres. The reasons behind thelack of government interest in alternative tenure regimes are not that thecurrent policy essentially serves the interest of agricultural developmentbetter than its alternatives. Neither is it because there are no critics whoargue that the existing land tenure system in the country falls significantlyshort of satisfying some of the basic principles of land tenure outlined above.In fact, many researchers have raised a number of issues regarding the landpolicy since 1975 concerning the deleterious effect it has had and thepotentially disastrous future consequences to the country's agrarian populationif it is not reformed urgently (Dessalegn, 1984).

In terms of the performance of the agricultural sector sincethe 1975 reform, it is well known that the sector has been performing badly. Theentire sector grew at an average of 2 percent per annum between 1980 and thefall of the Derge (Ethiopian Military Junta) regime in 1991. Part of this poorperformance is explained by the numerous restrictive regulations imposed by theDerge regime, including price fixing, forced creation of cooperatives, andpreferential treatment to cooperatives and state farms at the expense ofsmallholders. Unfortunately, the performance of the sector did not improve mucheven after some of these egregious restrictions were lifted following the 1992reforms of the current government. A thorough analysis and evaluation ofEthiopian agriculture recently undertaken by the Ethiopian Economic Association(EEA, 1999/2000) reveals that, despite the commendable numerous initiatives andmeasures undertaken by the government, the performance of the agriculturalsector remained poor. The growth of the sector, excluding the politicallyturbulent year of 1991/92, increased only slightly to 2.26 percent per annum inthe six years between 1992/93 and 1997/98. In an attempt to explain thislacklustre performance, the EEA report cited above and a number of other studies(e.g. Mulat et al., 1998) identified many elements of the existing landtenure system such as declining farm size, tenure insecurity and subsistencefarming practices as important causes for the poor performance of thesector.

It is with this background that the EEA/Ethiopian EconomicPolicy Research Institute (EEPRI) considered the need for a thorough analysisand evaluation of the rural land tenure system as an important factor in shapingthe socio-economic structure of the rural sector. This research involved threesteps. First was a survey of the literature on the economics of land policy ingeneral and the land tenure systems under different regimes in the country sincethe period of colonial rule. The second part of the research, which is morerelevant to this paper, involved a large survey of farm households in allregions of the country except for Gambella to solicit a wide variety ofinformation from farmers regarding size of holding, farm and non-farm income,their opinion of the current land tenure arrangement and their preferredalternatives, etc. This was an extensive survey that involved more than 8 500households in eight regions of the country. A complete analysis of thisinformation is provided in the full report made available by EEA/EEPRI (2002).This paper provides results from this survey towards answering questions raisedin the current debate on land policy issues in the country. The third part ofthe report looks at the opinion of experts in the field (researchers, governmentoperatives, extension agents, etc.).

The paper is organized into five sections. The next brieflyoutlines those land tenure systems that have been in use since the period ofcolonial rule, followed by a brief discussion of the impact of these policies onresource allocation and agricultural development in the country based onavailable literature. The fourth and main part of the paper discusses findingsfrom the rural household survey by looking at pertinent variables related toland policy and rural incomes. This section also discusses the various argumentspresented in support of or against the current land policy in light of thesurvey findings. The last section provides some policy recommendations for thefuture.

OVERVIEW OF ETHIOPIA'S LAND TENURESYSTEM[84]

Land tenure system up to 1974

It is generally acknowledged that the pre-1975 land tenuresystem in Ethiopia was one of the most complex in the world and had not beenthoroughly studied (Cohen and Weintraub, 1975; Gilkes, 1975; Dessalegn, 1984;Dejene, 1999). The country's geographical, ethnic and cultural diversity and itshistorical background were mentioned among those factors that had producedhighly varied forms of land utilization and ownership. The complex nature of thesystem was also noted as playing a major part in hindering any serious progresstowards a meaningful reform. These difficulties might have also resulted in avariety of classifications and approaches used to describe the then land tenuresystem. Among others, rist/kinship, communal, diessa/village,private, state and church land tenure designations were used. However, the mostcommonly recognized tenure types are rist/kinship, private, church andstate holding systems. The rist/kinship tenure system was most prevalentin the northern part of the country whereas private tenure predominated in muchof the rest of the country. Government tenure was most prevalent in the lowlandand pastoral areas of the country.

The rist system was characterized by the principle ofacknowledging access to land (use rights and transfer rights without landalienation) by all descendants of people from a common ancestor and in anambilineal way (the right to inherit land from father's and mother's line ofdescent). Gult is a tenure system that can be considered a variant torist or rist - gult which is often easily confused withrist. The main distinctions are that gult is not a right on theland, rather a right to tax the benefits from land. Gult is nottransferable whereas rist - gult is transferable. Reduced landlessnessand tenancy were among the positive attributes of this system over privatetenure whereas diminution of holdings, land fragmentation and persistentlitigation over land access were among its serious problems cited in theliterature. With its gult rights over landholders, the rist systemhad also been an important element mediating the control of the peasantry by theregime through those elites holding such rights (Yigremew, 2002).

Private tenure was recognized as the most dominant systemduring the final days of the Imperial regime, affecting some 60 percent ofpeasants and 65 percent of the country's population. It was largely created bymeans of land granting by the crown to those members of the army who came fromthe north and those who were loyal to the regime in captured territories. Underthis system land was sold and exchanged; however, given that all the land wasoriginally state property and that private holders had no absolute rights, thiswas different from the general concept of a freehold system. Serious landconcentration, exploitative tenancy and insecurity have characterized theprivate tenure system.

Land tenure during the Derge period (1974 -1991)

The 1975 land reform by the Derge has been considered by manyas a radical measure that has abolished tenant - landlord relationships inEthiopia. The reform was designed to alter fundamentally the then agrarianrelations and make those working the land the owners; increase agriculturalproduction; create employment; distribute land and increase rural income; andprovide a basis for agricultural expansion. The provisions of the proclamation(No. 31/ 1975) include: public ownership of all rural lands; distribution ofprivate land to the tiller; prohibitions on transfer-of-use rights by sale,exchange, succession, mortgage or lease, except upon death and only then to awife, husband or children of the deceased; and in the case of communal lands,possession rights over the land for those working the land at the time of thereform. The power of administering land was vested in the Ministry of LandReform and Administration (MLRA) through Peasant Associations at the grassrootslevel. The law provided 10 ha of land as the maximum a family can possess. Noable adult person was allowed to use hired labour to cultivate their holdings(Yigremew, 2002).

Since the 1975 land reform, the right to own land is vested inthe state. Farmers access land through state-mandated peasant associations.Farmers have openended usufruct rights (the right to use another's property) toland in peasant associations where they reside, but subject to proof ofpermanent physical residence, and ability to farm continuously and meetadministrative dues and obligations. These use rights are inheritable.

The common practice was to allocate land according to thenumber of household members (Dessalegn, 1984; various case studies in Dessalegn,1994; Yigremew, 1997; Haile-Gabriel, 2000). Other factors such as quality ofland, size of family workforce and ownership of farm assets, which havesubstantial influence on ability to use land, are not given as much prominenceas family size. Hence, there are farmers who hold equal size of land perhousehold, but with significant variation in factor intensity, such as land peradult labour, land per oxen and land per working capital. As new claimants forland arise, these associations have continuously to meet the new demands forland. However, their ability to meet the growing demand for land, especiallytheir capacity to balance other factors at farm level, has been limited (Tesfayeand Bedassa, 2002).

IMPACT OF PAST LAND POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES

As indicated earlier, the major problems of the pre-1975 landtenure in Ethiopia cited by different studies include exploitative tenancy, landconcentration and underutilization, tenure insecurity, and diminution andfragmentation of holdings (Fesseha, 1970: pp. 135 - 140). Tenure insecurity wascited as one of the limitations of the prerevolution/reform land tenure system.It manifested in various forms ranging from endless litigation over land rightsto complete eviction from holdings. Endless litigation has also been mentionedas one of the features of the rist tenure (Alem-Ante, 1970: p.218).

Dessalegn (1984) has argued that for all tenants, the majorfactor for their dependency and the chief obstacle to improved production wasthe lack of security of tenure. One major feature of the tenure system wasdwindling size of holdings. The majority of peasant households both in theprereform (57 percent) and in the postreform periods (72 percent) operatedholdings of 1 ha or less. The total number of this group of "mini-plot" holdersincreased substantially after the reform. The Ministry of Agriculture (1975: pp.58 - 59) agricultural sample survey (1974/75) regards fragmentation "as a veryserious problem in some regions of Ethiopia". Although sometimes "reluctance" ofpeasants is given as an excuse for not adopting new technologies, it is moreclosely associated with resource provisioning than with attitude. Mulat etal. (1998) in their study on the determinants of fertilizer use concludedthat the most important factor explaining the quantity used by farmers is farmsize.

A survey of the literature on land tenure during the Dergeregime (1975 - 1990) generally shows that diminution and fragmentation ofholdings, tenure insecurity and all its consequences, land degradation, andinefficient allocation of land by way of restrictions on land transfer and tosome extent lack of appropriate land use and administration are the mostcommonly cited problems. Many case studies illustrate thesesituations.

Land tenure and agricultural development policies of thegovernment since 1991

Rural land policy and Ethiopia's agriculturaldevelopment led industrialization policy (ADLI)

The Ethiopian Government formulated a development strategyknown as the ADLI launched in 1994/95. ADLI is described as focusing onincreasing the productivity of "smallholder farmers" through the diffusion offertilizers and improved seeds, together with the establishment of creditschemes as well as the expansion of infrastructure - the road system,improvement of primary health care, primary education and water supply. Thestrategy viewed agriculture as the engine of growth, based on its potentiallysuperior growth linkages, surplus generation, market creation, and provision ofraw materials and foreign exchange. The success of ADLI depends on the validityof a number of its assumptions. First is the issue of substantially increasingproductivity through the provision of improved technology alone withoutfundamental change in the existing institutional arrangement. Second is therather tenuous assumption that increased productivity and thus output will notaffect prices adversely and thus lead to increased monetary income of ruralhouseholds and thereby to a demanddriven industrialization. The two recentexperiences of 1996/97 and 2001/02 in which bumper crops have led to aprecipitous collapse of agricultural prices are examples questioning thevalidity of this assumption. Accordingly, critics of the strategy argue thatADLI as an agriculture and overall development strategy is facing complexchallenges. One such issue is the unresolved issue of land tenure. Moreover, theassumption that agriculture could take a leading role in economic developmentwithout concomitant strategies for urban development requires closescrutiny.

Poverty reduction strategy paper in Ethiopia in relationto land policy

Ethiopia completed the preparation of the poverty reductionstrategy paper (PRSP). In the process of developing the PRSP document,consultative meetings were held both by the government and by civil societyinstitutions, and similar results were found regarding poverty in Ethiopia andits possible causes. All the findings from these consultations indicate asignificant increase in poverty over the past 5 years and in almost all regionsof the country. In terms of increasing rural poverty, one of the most frequentlycited reasons was the unavailability of land and the declining fertility of thesoil (EEA/ EEPRI, 2002). This is clearly related directly to the existing landpolicy. Unfortunately, the issue of land policy was not vigorously debated inthese consultations as the discussions were deliberately focused on thegovernment's development strategy (ADLI), the Interim Poverty Strategy Paper(IPRSP) and the government's five-year development programme. Although there wasno prohibition in discussing issues outside this framework, a discussion on landpolicy certainly was not encouraged. The government also made it clear that thePRSP document would focus on ADLI as it relates to the agricultural sector. Itis therefore unlikely that much will come from the PRSP document by way of landpolicy reform. However, we show here that rural poverty is very much related tothe small size of landholdings, insecurity of tenure, poor farm managementpractices, etc., which are directly or indirectly related to land policy. Inparticular, reducing poverty in rural Ethiopia by using the agriculturalextension programme alone without addressing problems relating to land policy isunlikely to succeed.

Current land tenure

Immediately after the downfall of the Derge, no one wascertain what course the new government would take regarding land tenure. TheTransitional Government of Ethiopia had declared that the issue of land tenure(then defined as a choice between private and public ownership) would be settledin the process of developing the new federal constitution. When the new federalconstitution was adopted in 1995, the issue was settled in favour of publicownership of land and secured as one of the articles of the constitutionrequiring not only the full agreement of regional parliaments but also atwo-thirds majority in a nationwide referendum. In so doing, the governmenteffectively eliminated land policy as a variable instrument that could be usedto address the changing circ*mstances that affect the rural economy.

Article 40 of the 1995 constitution (which concerns propertyrights) provides that the right to ownership of rural and urban land, as well asof all natural resources, is exclusively vested in the state and in the peopleof Ethiopia. "Land is a common property of the Nations, Nationalities andpeoples of Ethiopia and shall not be subject to sale or other means of exchange"(Sub Article 3). Sub Article 4 also states that "Ethiopian peasants have theright to obtain land without payment and the protection against eviction fromtheir possession." Another important provision regarding property rights (SubArticle 7) states that "Every Ethiopian shall have the full right to theimmovable property he builds and to the permanent improvements he brings abouton the land by his labor or capital. This right shall include the right toalienate, to bequeath, and, where the right of use expires, to remove hisproperty, transfer his title, or claim compensation for it."

The constitution also states (Article 51) that the FederalGovernment shall enact laws for the utilization and conservation of land andother natural resources. Article 52 also states that Regional Governments havethe duty to administer land and other natural resources according to federallaws. Such law was enacted in July 1997 on "Rural Land AdministrationProclamation, No. 89/1997". This law vested Regional Governments with the powerof land administration (defined as "the assignment of holding rights and theexecution of distribution of holdings"; Article 2, Sub Article 6). Holdingrights were also defined as "the right any peasant shall have to use rural landfor agricultural purposes as well as to lease and, while the right remains ineffect, bequeath it to his family member; and includes the right to acquireproperty thereon, by his labor or capital, and to sell, exchange and bequeathsame" (Article 2. Sub Article 3).

There are no fundamental differences between the legalframework of the Derge and the present government on rural land issues.Moreover, if those belated policy changes[85]made by the Derge following its 1990 "mixed economy" reform are taken intoconsideration, more has stayed the same than has changed. In practical terms,there are more similarities in land administration between the two regimes thandifferences (see Dessalegn, 1997; Ege, 1997; Yigremew, 1997, 1999; Mekonnen,1999; Hoben, 2000).

However, control of land administration has now been takenaway from regional governments[86] and is nowdirectly under the responsibility of political bodies rather than technicalministries. Land redistribution practices, which were also halted by the Dergein 1989, have been started under the present government. The recent land lawsmentioned above also contain provisions for land redistribution. However, insome regions it seems that no further redistributions are anticipated (e.g. inTigray). For many economic issues, current policies are a continuation of thosechanges introduced towards the end of the Derge government.

Major problems of the existing land tenuresystem

A group of specialists from universities (local and abroad)had assessed rural land tenure issues in Ethiopia after the fall of the Derge(Bruce and Shem Migot- Adholla, 1993). The major issues identified by the studyinclude: many people are considered as landless by their community; inheritance,sharecropping, cash rentals, disguised land sales and possessory mortgages(antichresis) have also been important means of gaining access toland.

Other researchers have also concluded that there are problemswith the current land tenure system. From his recent studies in Amhara, Oromiaand Tigray regions, Tekie (2000) considered that the government had only oneimperative policy option: a movement away from the existing insecure tenuresystem towards a more stable and secured system. In a related work, Hoben (2000:p. 7) concluded:

"there was a consensus that the current system,because it does not guarantee security of tenure and undermines incentives, hasdetrimental effects on agricultural productivity and natural resourceconservation... current land policy does not give farmers secure rights over theland they use, does not maintain equitable access to land over time, does notprovide incentives for investment in improvements or conservation, and does notencourage farmers' entrepreneurial and experimental efforts to better their lot.From a policy perspective, it does not foster agricultural intensification,improved environmental management, accretion capital formation, or ruraldevelopment."

The current debate on land tenure andpolicy

Despite the constitutional provision that securely vested theownership of land to the state, rural land policy in Ethiopia has remained onesource of disagreement and focus of debate among politicians, academics andother stakeholders. An assessment of the land policy debate in present-dayEthiopia (Yigremew, 2001) shows that there is an unfortunate focus on ownershipissues and a dichotomy of views on state versus private ownership. Thegovernment and the ruling party advocate state ownership of land whereas expertsand scholars in the field, Western economic advisors, internationalorganizations such as the World Bank (World Bank, 1992) and opposition politicalparties favour private ownership. The main plank of the view advocating stateownership is that private ownership will lead to concentration of land in thehands of few people who have the ability to buy, resulting in the eviction ofpoor peasants and thus aggravating landlessness and potentially leading tomassive rural - urban migration of people left without any alternative means oflivelihood. The empirical validity of this claim is one of the issues that thesurvey addresses.

Critics of the current landholding system and those whoadvocate freehold largely base their arguments on the behaviour of economicagents and familiar property rights arguments, partially backed up by empiricalresults from Ethiopia and other countries. Because most of the arguments arevariations on the same theme, they can be summarized using the more coherentformulation in Barrows and Roth (1989: p. 4):

• Individualizationof land tenure (leasehold and freehold ownership) increases tenure security ofthe landholder, thereby reducing economic costs of litigation over landdisputes.

• Individualization increasesinvestment by increasing tenure security and reducing transaction costs. Highertenure security increases expected investment returns, thereby increasing thedemand for capital (including credit) for fixed-place investment. The supplyprice of credit decreases because the cost of lending is reduced by improvedcredit worthiness of projects, and higher collateral value. Both supply anddemand effects increase investment.

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• Individualization will cause aland market to emerge. Land will be transferred to those who are able to extracta higher value of product from the land as users who are more productive bidland away from less productive users.

Apart from a few attempts (Gebru, 1988; Dessalegn, 1992, 1994;Yigremew, 2001) there has not been a thorough, large-scale and systematic studyof the patterns, diversity and rationale of alternative views on land tenure inEthiopia.

THE CURRENT LAND TENURE SYSTEM

Despite the prevailing and continued debate about theEthiopian land tenure system, empirical investigations from the point of view ofthe major stakeholders, the farming community, are not adequately documented.The debate was largely between professionals, academics, opposition politicalgroups and the government or the ruling party. The perceptions of farmersregarding the problem and their alternative suggestions were seldom taken intoconsideration. By contrast, the current study covers almost all parts of thecountry, with large numbers of samples, and a wide breadth of information hasbeen gathered. A notable exception is that the Gambela region was excluded,because of the lack of enumerators who can speak the local language. Somefindings of the research work are given in this paper.

Research methodology

The launching of the land policy project at EEA/EEPRI wasfollowed by a workshop to increase awareness, which discussed the importance ofthe land tenure problems in Ethiopia, and suggested the nature of the landpolicy research project to be conducted by EEPRI. In addition, groups ofresearchers and academics with notable experience and knowledge in the fieldhave given their comments and suggestions on the contents of the fieldwork andtypes of data to be gathered.

Careful and sufficient thought was given to the samplingframework and the preparation of the fieldwork questionnaire. The draftquestionnaire was scrutinized by various experts in the field with differentbackgrounds: agriculturalists, sociologists, geographers, economists, etc. Thequestionnaire was designed to collect diverse information on all aspects ofrural land tenure, farmers' perceptions and smallholder agriculture ingeneral.

Sample cases for the rural survey were selected based onestablished criteria to capture as many factors as possible that are thought tohave influence on agriculture and rural life in general, with particularrelevance for the land tenure system. The criteria used were agro-ecology,population density, market/infrastructure access, farming systems and previousexperience in agricultural extension practices.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture with assistance from FAOand previous studies classify Ethiopia's 525 woredas (areas)/ districtsinto 18 broad agro-ecological zones (AEZs) (Ministry of Agriculture, 2000). Thezones are considered to reflect the broad variation in temperature, soilmoisture and altitude of the area they represent. The study conducted by theMinistry of Agriculture also identified 49 subagroecological zones that are morehom*ogeneous in terms of climate, physiography, soil type, vegetation, animals,farming system and land use. It was decided to include at least one woredafrom a given AEZ[87] and maintain theproportion between the number of woredas to be selected from a given AEZand its percentage geographical share. Forty-one woredas were randomlyselected to represent the different AEZs.

Other non-agro-ecological factors considered in sampleselection were population density, farming system and better access tomarkets/infrastructure. Moreover, some woredas known for their previoussuccess in implementing the agricultural extension programmes were considered inthe site selection. Although AEZs, which are primarily defined in terms ofaltitude and temperature, can ultimately influence population density andfarming system, these variables (population density, farming system and market)were considered independently to capture their impact in a better and directway. A further 29 woredas were thus selected based on thenon-agro-ecological factors used for the selection. The total number ofworedas covered in the study was thus 70.

Following a multistage sampling, an attempt was made tocapture regional disparities within the selected variables. Accordingly, thesamples were further classified geographically into regions, zones andworedas. The total number of samples to be selected from each group(strata) were distributed to the different areas in proportion to theirpercentage share within the selected variable.

Two peasant associations (PAs) were selected from eachselected woreda randomly; one PA was selected from PAs near the woredacapital or the nearest town (to reflect availability of improvedinfrastructure) whereas the other was very far from the nearest town. Sixtyonefarmers from each PA were selected randomly; 8 540 farmers from the entirecountry were randomly sampled using the aforementioned methods.

TABLE 1
Average landholding per household and perworking age population (percentage of sampled households)

The field survey was carried out during August 2001.Preparation included translation of the questionnaire into one of the locallanguages (Amharic), training of enumerators, and pretesting of thequestionnaire; together with actual data collection this took a period of about6 weeks. About 140 trained enumerators and ten supervisors participated in thesurvey. A database program called FoxPro was used for data compilation andorganization. A complied database was processed using SPSS statisticalsoftware.

The existing land tenure system in Ethiopia

Landholding

One of the key issues raised in relation to land policy is thedegree to which the size of landholdings can adequately support the livelihoodof the farmer. As discussed earlier, a number of researchers (e.g. Dessalegn,1984, 1994) have raised the issue of the gradual conversion of Ethiopianagriculture from small-scale agriculture to micro-agriculture that cannot reducethe poverty of the farmers. Farm size in all sample households ranges from zero(landless) to 10 ha, although the latter are very small in number and usuallyfound in the less densely populated regions of Somali and Afar. The mean size isabout 1.02 ha per household and this average declines slightly to about 0.96 hawhen we remove samples from the Somali and Afar regions (Table 1).

When we look at the figures in relation to holding per activefarm labour force (landto- labour ratio) we find that the average holding issignificantly reduced to 0.38 ha. The frequency distribution of holdings showsthat nearly 75 percent of the sample households have less or equal to 0.5 ha ofland to till per active farm labour force in the family whereas about 93 percentof these families have 1 ha or less. Equally importantly, the number of landlessfarmers (despite the distributive nature of the prevailing land policy) issignificant, amounting to about 11 percent of the farming population in thesample.

As expected, farm-holding is not uniform throughout thecountry and differs significantly from region to region and depending on farmingpractices and other operating factors. The prevalence of smaller holdings of upto 0.5 ha in the sample reaches 55 percent in Tigray, 40 percent in Amhararegion and 34 percent in the Southern region. It is lowest in the Somali region(3.1 percent). Landholding ranges from as low as 0.22 ha per active farm labourforce in Tigray to a high of 1.61 ha in the Somali region. The highly populatedhighland regions of Amhara and SNNPR (South Nation Nationalities and PeopleRegion) have an average holding of about one-third of a hectare whereas Oromiahas an average holding of 0.40 ha.

TABLE 2
Income, productivity and food security of samplehouseholds during the 2000/01 cropping season by region

ME = man-equivalent, measure of household labourforce.

*An estimated 1 qt cereal equivalent is added fromenset.

Net farm income is the revenue from all farm outputs less alldirect and indirect costs excluding family labour input (but accounting for paidlabour cost). Household income is all reported income from farming and non-farmactivities for the whole household. Per capita household income is calculated astotal household income divided by the number of adult equivalents in thefamily.

The regional variation in farm holdings is to a certain degreereplicated in the holding patterns by major farming systems. As expected, sizeof holding is very low in the enset (false banana)-dominant regions of thesouth, on average less than 0.25 ha, whereas wheat-dominant farming areas havethe highest average size holding, about 1 ha.

Clearly, given this distribution, the claim that the existinglandholding system will reduce landholding size to an non-viable proportion withtime cannot be discredited. In fact, this is one of the key issues that any landpolicy (or any development policy) in Ethiopia needs to address. Whether thecurrent size of holdings can provide sufficient income to farmers to enable themto live above the poverty line via increased productivity and the use of moderntechnology is an issue that will be discussed later. What is clear from thesedata is that with the expected increase in the farming population in comingyears, it is difficult to see how the farming population can escape povertywithout a significant creation of non-farm employment in the near future toabsorb the additional population.

Farm income

The income of the farming population closely follows thepatterns observed for size of holdings. As shown in Table 2, net farm income ishigher in regions with high average holding and lower in regions with lowaverage holding. Sample households in Benishangul-Gumuz have the highest netfarm income at Br2 175 whereas net farm income is lowest in the Southern regionat Br512 and the average for all farms in the five regions is Br1 162. Theaverage household income for all the sample households is about Br1 549. Theregional distribution of average household income is slightly different in thathouseholds in Tigray have significantly higher incomes not commensurate withaverage size of landholding. Tigray is the second highest household incomeearner next to Benishangul. This is clearly because of the availability of moreoff-farm employment in the region and/or the availability of more foodaid.

What is more revealing about the meagre size of income inrural Ethiopia are the numbers per capita household income. Table 2 shows thatfor the five regions considered the average income per capita (adult equivalent)is about Br333, roughly about US$39 a year or a little more than US$0.1 per day.Tigray has the highest income in this category at Br431, more than 2½ timesthat earned by the average person in the lowest income region of the south. Percapita household income in Amhara and Oromia are roughly the same whereasBenishangul comes a very close second to Tigray.

In addition to the average income figures given above, a moredetailed picture of farm income can be obtained from income frequencydistribution (data not shown). The distribution of the net income is skewed tothe lowest income categories. Close to one-fifth of the sample cases earned onlyup to Br100; 46.7 percent of the cases had a net farm income up to Br500. Onlyslightly more than one-third of the households had a net income above Br1 000.Only 6.3 percent earned above Br4 000.

When disaggregated by farming systems, wheat-dominant areashave the highest per capita household income at about Br602, followed veryclosely by teff-producing areas (less only by Br10) (data not shown). Theenset-producing farmers earn less than one-tenth of the wheat and teff farmers.The extremely low level of income of the enset-producing and densely populatedregions of the south is a clear indication of the importance of the availabilityof land in determining household income.

The rather low level of income of farmers in Ethiopia hasobvious implications for the poverty situation that prevails in the country ingeneral and in the rural population in particular. If we consider the lowpoverty line calculated by the government (MEDAC, 1999), estimated at Br1 075per annum per household (about US$126 dollars per annum per household), 63percent of the sample households lie below this national poverty line if weconsider only net farm income. When the distribution of total household incomeis considered (net farm income plus non-farm income) the proportion of thepopulation below the poverty line decreases to 53 percent, but this is still avery large percentage. This figure compares unfavourably with the 47 percent(and declining) estimated by the government in rural Ethiopia (MoFED, 2002) andis commensurate with the increased poverty reported by the public in therecently held PRSP consultations both by the government and civil societyinstitutions (EEA/EEPRI, 2002b; PRSP Secretariat, 2002). This clearly shows thatthe poverty situation in rural Ethiopia has reached rather desperatelevels.

Farm productivity

The low level of income of farm households is a result of boththe small size of landholding and the low level of productivity in Ethiopianagriculture. As can be seen from Table 2, average net farm income per hectare ofcultivated land (an indicator of land productivity) averages Br2 300 in the2000/01 cropping season, which is about US$282. This figure is twice the averagevalue added per hectare of agricultural land estimated by the World Bank for1994 - 1996.[88] In terms of land productivity,the Southern region has the highest value followed by the Tigray and Amhararegions. The higher productivity per unit of land in the Southern region may beattributed to cash crops such as coffee, which unfortunately is today fetchinglower prices.

Average net farm income per labour force (a rough measure oflabour productivity) stands at Br413; the highest figure obtained is fromBenishangul where the average size of holding is relatively high, and the lowestfigure is from the Southern region where size of holding is extremely low. Theother three regions have roughly similar returns per labour force. This again isa clear indication of the close link between size of holding and labourproductivity in Ethiopian agriculture.

In terms of farming systems (data not shown), landproductivity is highest in the teff-dominant farming regions followed bywheat-producing regions, whereas return to labour is highest in wheat-dominantfarming systems followed by teff-dominant regions. This seems to reflect thefact that teff farming is more labour intensive than wheat farming, tending toreduce labour efficiency for the former. What is interesting in these figures isthe low level of income obtained in the coffee-producing regions during thiscropping season. Given the history of relatively high levels of income of coffeefarmers, the fact that coffee producers earned only 32 percent of the net farmincome per hectare and only 32 percent of the net farm income per labour forceearned in teff-producing regions is a clear indication of the degree to whichcoffee farmers in Ethiopia have suffered because of the precipitous collapse ofcoffee prices in the international market.

Farm size and household food security

Given the low level of productivity and the small size ofholdings, one of the key issues that needs to be addressed is the degree towhich farmers can attain food security for their families within the currentproduction system. Respondents were asked if they have enough land to producesufficient food for their families. Nearly 77 percent of the respondents feelthat they do not have enough land to produce sufficient food for theirfamilies.

If we look at the food security issue strictly in relation tocereal production and by region, the picture we get is that on average cerealproduction provides slightly above the minimum requirement for food security.However, regions in the far north and south are facing serious food deficits.Including the landless farmers reported in this study, the proportion offood-insecure households for all the sample households (cases with landholdingless than the minimum area required for minimum food production) is 48 percent(Table 2). Variation by regions is also quite significant. A rough estimate ofthe minimum area required to attain food security, given the current averageproductivity of cereals, shows that households below this minimum size of landrange between 41 percent in Oromia and 75 percent in Tigray. Considering therole of enset as a staple food in southern regions, the prevalence of foodinsecurity (at least in terms of meeting minimum food needs) is lowest here at26 percent.

The minimum cultivable area required per household ranges from0.86 ha in Amhara to 1.01 ha in Oromiya, reflecting differences in averagehousehold size. To account for the role ofenset[89] production in food security,particularly in the predominantly enset-producing regions, the amount of ensetproduction per household was considered. If enset production is taken intoaccount in addition to cereals, the food production level of the averagehousehold increases and the minimum area required for food production falls to0.56 ha. This reduces the proportion of households with landholdings of lessthan the minimum requirement to 26 percent in Southern regions compared with avalue of 47 percent if only food grains are considered.

Current land policy, farmers' opinion andattitude

As stated earlier, the debate on land tenure in Ethiopia ischaracterized by extreme positions revolving around state/public ownership andfreehold. Furthermore, this debate has rarely involved the main stakeholders,the farmers themselves. One of the central objectives of this research was toregister farmers' opinions on the prevailing landholding system. It wasimportant not only to find out what farmers think, but equally importantly todiscuss the validity of the arguments on both sides of the debate. We will comeback to the latter issue in due course. First, let us look at farmers' opinionregarding the prevailing land policy.

TABLE 3
Farmers' perception of tenure security,evaluation of the existing tenure system and alternative choices (percentage ofsampled households)

*There is a variation in the response of the otherregions (Afar, Somali, and Benishangul). In Benishangul 62.3 percent of thecases feel that the current system is not good.

Farmers' view of the current tenurearrangement

As can be seen from Table 3, the majority of farmers (61percent) in the sample think that the current land tenure system is good and 38percent believe that the system is not. In this sense, those who argue forstate/public ownership of land seem to reflect the majority opinion of farmhouseholds. The degree of support for the existing tenure arrangement, however,is not as strong as the government claims and varies significantly from regionto region.

In the predominantly pastoral areas of Somali (86 percent) andAfar (68 percent) as well as in the densely populated region of the South (78percent), support is quite strong. There is strong opposition in the relativelysparsely populated Benishangul region where over 62 percent of the householdsoppose the current system. In the highland region of Tigray some two-thirds ofthe households are in favour of the current system whereas nearly 47 percent ofthe households in Amhara and 43 percent of the households in Oromiya do not likethe current tenure arrangement; these do not represent a smallminority.

The most important reason given for support of the existingtenure arrangement seems to be related to the user rights granted to farmers, asreported by 37 percent of those questioned, followed by 20 percent of therespondents who emphasized the equity/justice brought by the tenure system as acontinuation of the 1975 land reform. Another 19.7 percent of the surveyedfarmers feel that with the existing system they do not fear losing theirplots.

Farmers opposing the prevailing land policy give theirinability to obtain additional land as the dominant reason for theirdissatisfaction (44 percent), followed by their inability to buy or sell land(13 percent), fear of losing land (12 percent) and injustice in landadministration (11 percent). The reasons provided are closely related to accessto land, insecurity of tenure, absence of formal land markets and administrativeinjustice.

Tenure security issues. Insecurity of tenure can betriggered and affected by a variety of factors. At the centre of the issue isthe degree to which the holders feel that their rights to the land will not bearbitrarily violated. In this sense, the most secure tenure arrangement islargely believed to be freehold, which provides a full sense of ownership to theholder provided that there is a properly functioning and fair land adjudicationsystem. Additional insecurity factors include expectations towards further landredistribution, i.e. how long farmers feel they can retain their currentholding.

Despite government claims that farmers feel they own the landthey cultivate, the overwhelming majority of farmers (84 percent) know that ascurrently stipulated by laws and in practice, the land belongs to thegovernment. Only a very minor 4.4 percent believe that the cultivator hasownership. Furthermore, only 3.5 percent of the households believe that they canretain their current holding for over 20 years, and a significant majority (76percent) do not feel secure that their claim towards their existing holding willlast over 5 years. Obviously, this has important implications for incentives offarmers to put long-term investment in their current holding. In terms ofregional variation, except for Benishangul and the Southernregion[90] where the majority of respondentsfeel that they will retain their current holdings indefinitely, most respondentsin Tigray, Amhara and Oromia are not sure how long they will be able to keeptheir current holding.

Another indicator of insecurity is farmers' expectations offuture land distributions. Despite the fact that most regional governments havepublicly dissociated themselves from possible future land redistribution, only aminority of farmers (27 percent) are convinced that this will not occur in thefuture. By contrast, a significant majority (73 percent) feel either uncertainabout the future or are certain that there will be redistribution (Table 3). Ofthose farmers who think that there will be redistribution, a large majority (70percent) feel that this could take place before 2005. On average, 10 percent ofthe sample have experienced land redistribution since 1990.

In terms of winners and losers in a potential landdistribution, some 45 percent of the sample households believe that they willbenefit if such distribution takes place, whereas the remaining 55 percent areeither uncertain of the outcome or believe that they will lose a part of theirland from further redistribution (data not shown). Given the fact that theprimary underlying motive of redistribution is a concern for equity, it isreasonable to expect farmers' perception of potential benefit from distributionto be a function of their current size of holding. Accordingly, farmers withrelatively larger holdings fear a possible loss of land from redistributionwhereas those with small holdings are optimistic about the outcomes ofredistribution. A related issue is what to do with the increasing landlesspopulation in the absence of redistribution. As indicated earlier, landredistribution is becoming less and lessviable[91] as an option to address the problemof landlessness. Both the unpopularity of redistribution among peasants and theacknowledged small size of holdings prohibit redistribution as a viable policyoption for the government in many regions of the country. The more viablealternative, as discussed earlier, is to devise a coherent and urgent strategythat would enable the rapid growth in non-farm economic activities in urbancentres of the country.

Farmers' alternatives to the current system

The issue of tenure security seems to be a more importantconsideration for farmers than the particular form of ownership. The proportionof surveyed farmers who preferred public or state ownership with secured userights was about 48 percent followed by private ownership with full transferrights at about 31 percent as their ideal choice (Table 3). In both cases,security of tenure is the key concept. If we assume that those who did not giveany preference can be persuaded to adopt freehold, the farming population couldroughly be split into two equal parts between the two alternatives.

Further information supporting this contention is revealed ifwe look at

TABLE 4
Farmers' attitude towards current land tenureand their participation in long-term land management practices (number withpercentage in parentheses)

farmers' second preferred choice of tenure arrangement (datanot reported). Support for private ownership increased by the same percentage ofthose who were undecided as to their first choice to almost 50 percent whereassupport for state/public ownership declined to a mere 15 percent. This shouldserve as a caution to advocates of state holding regarding the amount of publicsupport they perceive to have. Clearly, farmers seem to take a more pragmaticapproach than others involved in the debate. Most farmers are not keen onunrestricted freehold as revealed by the large support for state ownership withsecured rights as their first choice. Neither do they seem to be willing tosacrifice security of tenure when they feel that state ownership fails toprovide this. Indeed, the data seem to suggest that a more flexible landholdingsystem centred around providing security of tenure and that takes into accountlocal sensibilities and includes a mixture of private, state and communalholding might generate significant support among the farmingpopulation.

Land management practices

One of the key issues related to land tenure is the degree towhich the tenure arrangement encourages sustainable farm practices. It isgenerally believed that a more secure tenure system provides the necessaryincentives for farmers to manage their land more efficiently and invest in landimprovement. Assessment of better land management is evaluated in relation tofarm practices such as crop rotation, terracing, fallowing and tree planting. Ingeneral, the prevailing land management practice does not encourage agriculturalsustainability in the country.

One practice that most farmers use to improve land fertilityis crop rotation, which over three-quarters of the households employ. Themajority of farmers do not use any other form of sustainable practice. Thelowest level for any sustainable practice (23 percent) is fallowing, which canbe explained by the small size of plots. Planting trees is done by only 39percent of households. Terracing, by contrast, is applied by 47 percent of thesample households. Lack of tenure security could be one of the prime reasons forweak land management practices exhibited by Ethiopian farmers (Deininger etal., 2003). Interestingly, however, there does not appear to be anydiscernible pattern in use of sustainable farm practices between plots ofdiffering sizes. This could strengthen the argument that issues of security oftenure are more important than those of plot size or landavailability.

The data show that engagement in longterm land improvementpractices is related to farmers' opinion on the current land tenure system, andperceptions regarding security (Table 4). Sixty-two percent of farmers whosupport the current system, for example, built terraces and planted tress. Bycontrast, roughly 50 percent of farmers who feel more secure (i.e. those whosaid "yes" to the question "Do you believe that you will continue to own yourcurrent holding?") built terraces and planted trees against the 36 percent offarmers who were uncertain about continuing to own their current holding. Evenwhen we classify the relatively more secure farmers into groups based on theirperceived degree of security as reflected by their expected years of continuedownership, those who are more secure (who believe that they will retain theircurrent holding size indefinitely) are better engaged in long-term landimprovement practices compared with those who expect to own plots for shorterperiods (Table 5).

TABLE 5
Farmers' perceptions of security of holdings andtheir involvement in long-term land management practices (number with percentagein parentheses)

Evaluation of the argument in support of the existingsystem

Government's fear of land sales and migration. Asdiscussed in detail in previous sections, excluding ideological considerations,the government's or the ruling party's argument for the continuation of theexisting system rests solely on concerns for the alternative. In particular, itis claimed that freehold will lead to massive eviction of the farming populationas poor farmers are forced to sell their plots to unscrupulous urban speculatorsparticularly during periods of hardship. One of the most interesting results ofthis survey is the decisive rejection of this claim. Over 90 percent of thehouseholds surveyed indicated that they would not sell their land wholly orpartially if given the right to own their plots. Only 4.5 percent of thehouseholds would be inclined to sell their land given the opportunity (data notshown).

The reasons given for the unwillingness to sell reveals arational response on the part of farmers. The overwhelming majority of farmers(70 percent) will not sell their land because they have no viable alternative,and a significant minority (17 percent) said they would never sell their land nomatter what the circ*mstances. How then would they cope when faced with periodsof hardship? The response to this question largely supports the recent WorldBank position for the important role that formal rural land rental markets havein enhancing efficiency, and increasing access to credit and possibly security(Deininger and Binswanger, 1999: pp. 255 - 267). The data clearly reveal thatmost farmers would rather rent their land during stressful periods (47 percent)compared with any other alternative. In other words, in addition to all theother benefits of rental markets suggested in the literature, the availabilityof formal land rental markets will serve as a cushion to enable farmers towithstand unfavourable circ*mstances by temporarily renting their land ratherthan selling it. This also suggests one option to Ethiopian policy makers toconsider in a possible reform programme without necessarily resorting to theprivatization of rural land.

The potential of the extension programme to compensate forthe problems of the existing land tenure system. The government's positionin favour of the current land policy is not entirely because of a lack ofrecognition of the problems associated with it. As suggested earlier, it resultsmainly from a fear of the alternative. A corollary to this is the deeply heldconviction that the system's failings can be adequately compensated throughrapid increases in productivity of smallholders through the extension programmethat the government has been undertaking since 1994. The validity of this claimneeds to be measured in relation to the increase in productivity that has beenachieved by farmers included in the extension programme compared with those whoare not and their resulting increase in household income.

TABLE 6
Performance of farms by size of land holding andparticipation in extension programme

To evaluate this claim, the survey separated respondentsbetween those who are currently participating in the extension programme andthose who are not. An important point that must be mentioned from the outset isthat even if the claim is entirely valid, the number of farmers not included inthe extension programme is far greater than those who are. For this samplesurvey, nearly 63 percent were not participating in the programme whereas 34percent were (Table 6). Therefore, it may be some while before a successfulextension programme could make a marked difference in reducing rural poverty andtherefore other measures would be required.

Taking farm income and resource productivity as performanceindicators, we attempted to compare farmers who participated in the agriculturalextension programme and those who did not when this survey was conducted. As canbe seen from Table 6, land productivity is higher by only 5.8 percent for thoseparticipating in the extension programme as measured by net farm income perhectare. Per capita food production is also higher by about 33 percent. Theparticipating farmers earned on average Br285 more. Although not significant, atleast in these two cases, the government's claim that the extension programmecould increase productivity does seem valid. Curiously, the same is not truewith regard to labour productivity (net farm income per labour force), which ishigher for non-participants by about 2 percent. This obviously contradicts thegovernment's argument that the extension programme could compensate for theproblems with the land policy.

Looking at the disaggregated data by size of holding, a morecomplicated picture emerges. The first clear conclusion is that the size of theholding is very important. With very minor exceptions, in almost all categorieslarger size holdings perform better than smaller size holdings irrespective ofparticipation in the extension programme.

The tentative conclusions that emerge from analysis of thedata discussed in this section are not in agreement with those of thegovernment. Clearly, the average performance of those who participated in theextension programme is not better (in fact is usually worse) than those who didnot participate. Even for those involved in the extension programme, landholdingremains a key determinant for success and better performance. As landholdingdeclines, per capita food production and farm income also decline, indicatingthat extremely small-sized farms cannot be made productive even with improvedtechnology, and certainly not enough to address rural poverty issues by theextension programme alone. This clearly reveals the need to address the problemsassociated with the landholding programme rather than fully relying on theextension system to solve rural poverty issues let alone to solve the broaderdevelopment problems of the country.

CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

This study clearly indicates that the problems faced byEthiopian agriculture are very much related to the existing landholding system,although not exclusively. Poverty and food insecurity are widespread, and theseare the main challenges with which the agricultural sector is faced.

Analysis of farmers' preferred alternative choice of landtenure system has revealed that the issue of tenure security is a more importantconsideration than the particular form of ownership. The results clearly showthat farmers seem to have a more pragmatic approach than those involved in thedebate. Most farmers are not keen on unrestricted freehold, as indicated by thelarge support for state ownership with secured rights as their first choice.Neither do they seem to be willing to sacrifice security of tenure when theyfeel that state ownership fails to do so. Instead, the data seem to suggest thata more flexible landholding system centred around providing security of tenureand that takes into account local sensibilities including a mixture of private,state and communal holding would be a favourable option among the farmingpopulation rather than one fixated by the public/private dichotomy thatcharacterizes the current debate in the country.

Further analysis using the survey data differentiating tenuresecurity and transferability to explore determinants of different types ofland-related investment and its possible impact on productivity shows thatgovernment action to increase tenure security and transferability of land rightscan significantly enhance rural investment and productivity.

To some extent, the government's claim that the extensionprogramme can increase land productivity is valid. The findings in this study donot unequivocally support the government's argument that the agriculturalextension programme can overcome the problems with land policy. Looking at theimpact of size of landholding on farm performance, the first obvious conclusionfrom the survey data is that the size of the holding is of considerableimportance. With minor exceptions, larger size holdings perform (with regard toincome and food production) better than smaller size holdings, irrespective ofthe farmer's involvement in the agricultural extension programme. Room forsustainable intensification is very much limited where peasant agriculture ischaracterized by mini-plots of uneconomic size.

The farmers' de facto involvement in land transactions despiterestrictions by law suggests that a suitable land policy will facilitate theoperation of formal land markets to enable better allocation of this importantresource. In a separate work using survey data from Ethiopia that empiricallyassessed the determinants of participation in land rental markets compared withthose of administrative land reallocation (Adnewe et al., 2003), theresults indicate that land rental markets outperform administrative reallocationin terms of efficiency and poverty, i.e. it has been found to favour thepoor.

The following policy issues and processes are tentativelysuggested for consideration:

• The land tenurepolicy and strategy must be governed by a socio-economic rationale that includesefficiency and equity considerations.

• The land tenure policy,programmes and measures must give due attention to the farmers' point ofview.

• A more flexible landholdingsystem centred around providing security of tenure that takes into account localsensibilities including a mixture of private, state and communal holdings mightgenerate significant support among the farming population and resolve thestructural problems facing the sector.

• A conducive environment mustbe created to encourage rural land markets in view of their role in improvingresource allocation, efficiency, productivity and mobility.

• Policy-makers and agriculturaldevelopment experts must give serious consideration to the fact that there islimited room for intensification with the prevailing mini-plots operated bysubsistence farms. Ways and means must be sought to create viable farm sizesthat will enable economic use of farm input in a way that leads to increasedintensification in a dynamic and sustainable manner.

• Although the issue of ruralland tenure is a major component of agricultural and rural development inEthiopia, the problem of agrarian transformation should be looked at from awider and long-term perspective.

• Given the high rate ofincrease in the rural population and the already small size of holdings, povertyreduction needs input beyond the farming sector. There is a clear need to devisea coherent and urgent strategy that will enable the rapid growth innon-agricultural sectors.

• Creation of strong rural -urban links that encourage mobility of the farming population should beaddressed as a matter of priority.

• Given these findings, thegovernment needs to revisit its land policy in order to devise an appropriatepolicy framework that addresses the problem of the agricultural sector. Thereshould be free and informed dialogue to prepare the ground for constructiveinput from all sectors of the population, particularly those in the farmingpopulation. It is thus recommended that the government establish an independentcommission composed of all stakeholders to study the problems of the currenttenure system and suggest appropriate policy measures.

What can be said for certain is that as daunting as thecurrent situation is, the future for the rural population could be catastrophicunless the situation is boldly and urgently addressed. The current solutionprovided by the government to the agrarian crisis rests on the conviction thatland productivity and rural incomes will be increased substantially through theagricultural extension package, thereby reducing rural poverty. The governmentalso sees this policy as the main engine of growth for the whole economy throughthe demand-driven industrialization it will engender. This claim for ruralEthiopia is seriously questioned in the empirical analysis provided in thispaper.

Cour (2002) has recently discussed the interrelationshipbetween urbanization and rural development, and has seriously questioned thevalidity of the primacy given to agriculture as the engine of growth for thewhole Ethiopian economy. Cour argued that given the current level ofurbanization (the urban-to-rural ratio is 0.14; roughly seven farmers supplyingone urban consumer), even if output and productivity substantially increases asthe strategy (ADLI) hopes, the result will be a decline in prices as a result ofshortage of demand, leaving the farmer possibly worse off. This is essentiallywhat we have observed in 2001/2002. Two consecutive bumper harvests (largelycaused by favourable weather conditions) have led to a precipitous collapse incereal prices. Cour's recommendation was that policy makers need to give urgentattention to measures to increase urbanization, including lifting therestrictions (which are inherent in the current land policy) on farmers movingto urban areas. According to Cour's projections, if current urbanization andpopulation trends continue, the Ethiopian population will increase to about 110million in 2025, of which the rural population will account for 88 million, or afurther 30 million more mouths to feed for an already overcrowded ruralpopulation.

This is clearly not sustainable. What this and other relatedstudies have shown is that Ethiopia has to make some hard choices in the nearfuture if a widespread disaster is to be avoided. What is needed is a carefuland deliberate initiative, backed by research, to identify an appropriate andpragmatic policy mix that could address the looming crisis of land tenure andits consequences. We hope this research could serve as a starting point forfurther informed policy dialogue.

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[84] This section drawsheavily on a paper by Yegeremew Adal commissioned for the EEA/EEPRI. The fullreport is provided in EEA/EEPRI working paper series No. 5 (EEA/EEPRI,2002).
[85] Land leases, commercialfarms, a temporary halt to land redistribution, creation of villages, productioncooperatives and other similar changes had already been introduced by theDerg.
[86] With the delegation ofland administration to the regions, regional governments enact different lawson land administration, land utilization, taxation and other relatedpolicies.
[87] Although many woredasshare two or more AEZs, they were categorized into that agro-ecology wheremost of their area falls. For this purpose, in addition to the Ministry ofa*griculture's report, two maps from the Ethiopian Mapping agency were utilized.One shows the political boundary of all woredas in the country and theother their agro-ecology.
[88] The World Bank estimatedthe figure at US$116 in 1987. See World Bank, World Development Report1998/99, cited in EEA (1999/2000: p. 198).
[89] Robert and Chernet(1996). Their findings indicate that in woredas commonly using kocho as astaple food for subsistence, yields range from 600 to 1500 kg per household(0.324 - 0.810 tonnes in cereal equivalent). Taking these data and an average of0.56 tonnes enset production in cereal equivalent, the area required for minimumfood production is 0.56 ha.
[90] In the Southern regions,as landholdings are already smaller, farmers might consider that there is nofurther room for land redistribution.
[91] Deininger et al.(2003) have found that land redistribution served neither the poor norefficiency purposes.