Review
of Landholding Systems and Policies in
EEA/Ethiopian Economic
Policy Research Institute
Working Paper No 5/2002
CONTENTS
2. LAND TENURE
UNDER THE IMPERIAL REGIME
2.1. Major types of
land tenure
2.1.3. Church
tenure
2.2.2.
Tenure insecurity
2.2.3. Diminution and fragmentation of holdings.
2.2.4. Land concentration and underutilization.
3. LAND TENURE
UNDER THE DERG REGIME
3.1. The 1975 land
reform and abolition of diverse tenure.
3.2.1. Diminution
and fragmentation of holdings.
3.2.2. Tenure
insecurity and its impact.
3.2.3. Inefficient
allocation of land.
3.2.4. Inadequate
land administration.
4. THE CURRENT LAND
TENURE SYSTEM AND THE LAND DEBATE
4.1. The current land tenure system
4.2. The current
debate on land tenure
4.2.2. Some queries
about the debate
4.2. Summary of the current land tenure situation
5. SUMMARY ANALYSIS
OF THE LAND TENURE SYSTEMS UNDER THE
DIFFERENT REGIMES
5.3. Diminution and fragmentation of holdings.
5.4. Inefficient allocation of land.
5.5. Problems in
land administration.
5.7. The land
debate and international experience.
1. INTRODUCTION
A thorough analysis and evaluation of the past performance of Ethiopian
agriculture recently undertaken by the Ethiopian Economic Association (Befekadu
and Berhanu 2000) reveals that, despite the numerous commendable initiatives
and measures undertaken by the government, the performance of the agriculture
sector remained poor. Many elements of
the existing land tenure system, such as declining farm size, tenure
insecurity, and subsistence farming practices, are identified as part of those
causes of the poor performance of the sector.
It was also underlined that the sector needs fundamental transformation
at the center of which lies the issues in the land tenure system.
The Ethiopian Economic Association/ Ethiopian Economic
Policy Research Institute considers that the rural land tenure system is an
important factor in shaping the socio-economic structure of the rural sector.
It also believes that, one way or another, the land tenure system defines how
individuals, communities, and government relate to land and its administration
and the social and economic values and benefits associated with it. It is also
believed that the land tenure system is more critical among those problems of
the agricultural sector because it provides the fundamental ground rule under
which all economic agents operate regarding land.
As a result, the land tenure issue has attracted widespread attention
and debate among policymakers, government and non-government sections, the
private sector, researchers and the community at large. It also remained to be a challenge that needs
to be addressed based on a comprehensive and thorough research and analysis.
It was with such understanding that the EEA/EEPRI
decided to launch research on “the current land tenure systems and its
implications on the overall performance of the agriculture sector in the
country”. The overall objective
of the research is to undertake a thorough and comprehensive study on issues
that are related to the land policy and its implications on agricultural
performance and thereby contribute towards policy debate, processes and policy
formulation in the country.
One such study being undertaken is on “Review of
Theories on Land Tenure and Country Experience”, which is published in
Working Paper No. 4/2002 of EEA/EEPRI.
This study explores land tenure issues- theories, country experiences,
and the Ethiopian case during the period pre-1975 to present and raises
fundamental issues for further investigation.
This part (Part II) deals with the review of landholding systems
and policies in
The report is organized as follows. Following an Introduction,
Ethiopian land tenure under the Imperial regime is discussed. Section Three deals with the land tenure
issues during the Derg era. Section Four
discusses the present land tenure system. Section Five is about rural women and
Section Six discusses the current debate on the prevailing land tenure
system. This is followed by Section
Seven, which is a summary analysis of the whole land tenure issues relevant to
the proposed study and gaps are identified for further research. Section Eight is the conclusion while Section
Nine provides a brief list of those outstanding issues of the whole discussion
that need further investigation for better understanding and clarity and this
is the fundamental objective of the whole exercise in this part of the report.
2. LAND TENURE UNDER THE IMPERIAL REGIME
2.1. Major types of land tenure
It is generally acknowledged that the pre-1975 land
tenure system in
These difficulties might have also resulted in a
variety of classifications and approaches used to describe the then land tenure
system of the country. Among others, rist/kinship, communal, diessa/village,
private, state, church, and other land tenure designations were used. For reasons of simplicity and to make the
discussion congruent to the most common classification system, rist/kinship,
private, church, and state holding systems are used here.
With some differences, the most prevalent tenure in the northern part of
the country (
Hoben (1973) explains
that gult rights over land were given to members of the ruling elite as a
reward to loyal service to their lord and to religious institutions as
endowments. The individual or
institution that held land as gult had the right to collect taxes from those
who tilled it. They also had judicial
and administrative authority over those who lived on it. Rist and gult do not refer to different types
of land but distinct and complementary types of land rights. Normally they are found over the same
land. A single estate of gult land
comprising a few square miles includes within its boundaries tracts of fields
held as rist by a number of farmers. The
gult holder might also hold some fields as rist within his estate of gult land
(and outside it as well). Although
ristholders were not tenants, their hereditary right to use the land was
conditional on meeting taxes and service obligations associated with those
rights. Failure to meet such obligations
might lead to displacement of the ristholders.
Mesfin (1991:79-80) also noted that gult refers to the right to taxes on
land and not rights to land per se. Gult
right does not extend to ownership of land but is limited only to taxes. When
gult right is hereditary it is called riste-gult.
Although hereditary on ambilineal basis, the rist
system could not guarantee equal access to land to all dwellers of the
area. Individuals’ access to land was
highly determined by their social status (Hoben, 1973). Practical issues of politics and status enter
into the recognition of the rights keeping the whole process workable. Specifically, they influence the allocation
process in such a way that a claimant is likely to succeed only where he has
close kinship to the descent corporation and lives near the land he is
claiming. The rist system did not also
guarantee access to land to some people. Hoben, (1973) for instance, mentioned
that in Gojjam this category of people includes smiths, weavers, and tanners.
To some extent this landholding pattern was recognized
as the most dominant pattern affecting over 60% of
On the whole, these large blocks of territory were
located in the provinces of Arussi, Bale, Gemu-Gofa, Illubabor, Keffa, Wellega,
and some parts of Shoa and Wollo.
Dessalegn (1984) also notes that lands under private tenures were
originally expropriated from peasants of the crown. All unoccupied land in these areas was also
considered to be state property and it was distributed to men of influence and
power in the state apparatus. Much of
the land thus acquired was subsequently converted into private tenure, and
Haile Selassie’s government accelerated this process by its policy of imperial
land grants and by encouraging holders of state tenures to convert them into
freehold.
According to the above sources, land under private
ownership could be sold or exchanged without any restrictions except those
provided by law. However, it has been
noted that the Ethiopian ‘private tenure’ was different from what the term
generally signifies. According to (Dessalegn, 1984) lands under private tenures
were private not in the strictly capitalist but in the specifically Ethiopian
sense of the term. What the state had
granted (and virtually all land under private tenures was originally state
property) the state could take away, and in so far as the authority of the
state was concerned, the sanctity of private property was not recognized in
principle or in fact. Cohen and
Weintraub (1975) also stated that
“The use of the term freehold is justified by the fact that occupants’ rights
of permanent possession are nearly absolute.” But they pointed out that still
it was “important to note that in general Ethiopians view land in terms of
rights in the holder rather than possession of physical territory.”
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church used to be an important landholding
entity during the pre-revolution period.
However, the extent of church holdings was not clearly known (see
Dessalegn, 1984; Cohen and
Weintraub, 1975; Kidane, 1990; Aba
Gebre-Egziabher, 1970). Kidane (1990:51) noted, “The exact amount of church
lands was never really determined”. He suggested that the complexity of the
forms of church ownership, the decentralized nature of ownership of church
lands and also the secrecy of the church's central treasury were factors
responsible for the lack of information about the amount of church holdings.
Although church holdings were found both in the south
and northern parts of the country, much of the lands were in the south. Estimates of the amount of land held by the
church varied from 50 % (Aba Gebre-Egziabher, 1970, mentioning foreign sources)
to 5% (Cohen and Weintraub, 1975) of the total land area of the country. Dessalegn (1984) doubted those figures and put his estimate as not exceeding
10-12%.
For the most part church land had been obtained
through grants from the crown. However,
aristocrats and provincial gentry had also transferred land to local
institutions and officials. In general, land was held by the church, by
individuals obligated to provide clerical services for the community, or by
peasants who paid tribute to the church rather than taxes to the state. Church lands were held as semon land and gult
land. According to Aba Gebre-Egziabher
(1970:248), semon lands were those lands
whose use was placed at the disposal of the functionaries of the church by the
church herself in lieu of giving them cash salaries and in appreciation of
their services to the church in their respective region, while gult lands of
the church were those lands the use of which was given to the administrators of
churches and the high priests. In
addition to renting land, the church used to collect tribute or taxes. Regardless of such large possessions,
however, what the church had over those holdings was usufruct rights.
Like the other holding cases, the amount of government land had never
been determined with precision. MLRA
(1971:11, 13) estimate shows that government land in ten non-communal provinces
has a share of 28.4% and 22.4% measured and unmeasured lands respectively.
Cohen and Weintraub (1975:45) stated that 46.6% of the total
In a seminar where the land tenure issues were
seriously discussed around the eve of the 1974 revolution it was concluded
that: “It was observed that the problems of agricultural tenancy are so acute
that a remedy must be provided promptly.
In this connection it was indicated that a large proportion of the
farming population works and lives on the land of landlords paying high rents
and receiving low yields. Similarly it
was pointed out that tenants under the existing landlord-tenant agreements have
no security of tenure” (Tamirat, 1970:480).
It can be argued that thought there were some
differences among writers on the scope and nature of tenancy at that time it
seems that there is general agreement that tenancy existed in both the south ad
the north but it was much more widespread in the south than in the north. As per the findings of the 1974/75 survey by
MoA (1975a:60) out of the total holdings 36.4% were totally cultivated by
tenants while they partly owned another 15.3%.
The report stated that the condition of the tenants was “the most
prominent problem of the land question in the country”. Tenancy was also found more widespread in the
central, western and southwestern regions where private tenure was most
prevalent. In these provinces, the size
of tenant population as percentage of total rural population was 46% with
wholly rented land, 9% with partly owned and partly rented land making a total
of 55%. Tenancy was not a major problem
in the north where communal tenure prevailed.
There were, for instance in Gojjam, an area of highest pure tenant
holdings, only 13% of the whole holdings were under pure tenancy (Imperial
Ethiopian Government (IEG), 1972). Cohen and Weintraub (1975) noted that tenancy
was not a major problem in the north because there the peasantry had been
associated with kinship and village tenure systems which allowed most peasants
access to land, prevented its alienation and hence the emergence of a landless
class. Tenancy in this area was
associated with submerged caste groups, religious minorities, or young
ristholders who sought more land. It was
given that out of the Amhara and Tigrean peasants living in the north, fewer
than 5% spent their lives as tenant farmers,
In fact, many farmers used to begin their farming as tenants with the
expectation that they will ultimately hold rist rights over enough land to
support their families. The other major
pattern of northern tenancy occurred where the major rist holders rented
additional land to acquire more wealth.
This was interpreted to show that in the north tenancies were not a
hindrance but a means for moving toward more production and ultimately higher
status.
Cohen and Weintraub (1975) also underlined that the
view that tenancy was the major constraint to increased peasant production had
not been supported by substantial and empirical findings. They argued that assumptions that tenants
having no ownership incentives would not innovate or improve the land beyond
their minimum subsistence needs and that innovation would not occur where rents
were excessive and placed the risk of extra output solely on the tenant were
based on comparative international experience.
However, some experts noted that the economic impact
of the tenancy system was negative. For
instance, after results of rigorous studies on the major features of the then
tenure system, it was shown (IEG 1972) that tenancy was characterized by such
features as: payment of fees as a precondition for leasehold; 90% of all lease
agreements were verbal making dispute settlement arbitrary, largely equal
division of produces between tenants and landlords; payment of tithe or land
tax by tenants; and no compensation for tenants’ investments in land. It was underlined that “Under such conditions
the almost 50% of southern Ethiopia’s peasants who operate fully rented
holdings can scarcely be expected to take part in the technological revolution
which Ethiopian agriculture is now moving” (p.9).
Of course, care could have been taken in showing
tenancy figures across the nation, as all those who rented out their plots were
not necessarily landlords. For instance
it was reported that the number of landlords and tenants in Arussi (1961 E.C)
was 105,689 and 128,001 respectively (Jami Mavi, 1970:475). This means that the landlord/tenant ratio was
1:1.2 implying that the general picture does not seem the prevalence of big
landlords.
Shiferaw (1992) also cautioned that the whole idea of
tenancy was rather slippery. He asked
“How many of the tenants were tenants of landlords and tenants of other
peasants?” He noted that there was a
difference between being a tenant to a landlord and a tenant to another
peasant. With the peasant, eviction and
other exactions and services would not be a major problem. But with landlords eviction increasingly
became a threat particularly in those provinces where capitalist agriculture
was introduced.
2.2.2. Tenure insecurity
Tenure insecurity has been cited as one of the
limitations of the pre-revolution land tenure system. It had different forms from endless
litigations over land rights to complete eviction from holdings. Arbitrary peasant evictions were among such
sources of insecurity. For instance, it
was reported that only as a result of the CADU project in Arsi, 20 to 25% of
all those farmers living in the area in the mid 1960s had been evicted by the
end of 1970, most of them leaving Arussi in search of new land (IEG 1972:19).
Endless litigations have also been mentioned as one of
the feature of the rist tenure. A study report by Alem-Ante (1970:218 ) on legal
aspects of agricultural land disputes pointed out that it was generally
believed that land in
Tenure insecurity has increased the burdens placed on
the tenant by extractive rental arrangements.
As mentioned above, (IEG 1972)
90% of all lease agreements were verbal, making dispute settlement arbitrary,
and there was no compensation for tenants’ investments in land when evicted.
Dessalegn (1984) has also argued that for all tenants,
the major factor for their dependency, and the chief obstacle to improved
production was the lack of security of tenure.
Each sharecropper was never certain how long he would cultivate his
holding, or when he would be told to give it up. He added that evictions
were not common but the threat of eviction, rather than the act itself, was the
potent weapon in the hands of landlords, and the tenant over whom the danger of
unemployment and destitution hung like the sword of Damocles had no alternative
but to accommodate all the demands of his landlord, however onerous they
were. Shiferaw (1992) also noted the
arbitrary nature of eviction by landlords saying that the kind of eviction that
was dangerous to the peasant population was the eviction simply because the
landlord wanted to do it for one or another reason. Landlords had full power to evict their
tenants though tradition very often militated against it. But the fact remained that the tenant was under
certain insecurity as a result of
this. This fact was fully recognized by
critics as well as by the government.
2.2.3. Diminution and fragmentation of holdings
It is quite interesting that diminution of holdings
and fragmentation of parcels existed even in the south where there was
concentration of land under few landlords. Fesseha (1970) noted that operation of sub-economic
holdings and land fragmentation had been among those principal setbacks to
agricultural production during the pre-revolution period. It was estimated that out of the estimated 4
million farming families about 90% operated farms of less than 5 hectares and
of those two-thirds operated farms of less than one and half hectares. This was interpreted as essentially
constituting subsistence living in the agricultural sector with a production
level limited to home consumption only. In 1972 it was reported that (IEG 1972)
in 12 provinces where a survey was conducted two-thirds of all peasant holdings
comprised no more than one hectare under crops and forty-two % of all peasant
holdings comprised half a hectare or less under crops.
Dessalegn
(1984) pointed out that rural
Table 1. Percentage distribution of number and area of
holdings by size for the whole country
|
Holdings |
Holdings by size of total area (in ha) |
|||||||||||
|
Under 0.10 |
0.11-0.50 |
0.51-1.00 |
1.00-2.00 |
2.01-5.00 |
5.01-10.00 |
10.01 & above |
||||||
|
Number |
Cumulative percentage of total |
|||||||||||
|
3.5 |
31.1 |
57.6 |
81.0 |
96.2 |
99.0 |
100 |
||||||
|
Area |
0.2 |
6.0 |
18.4 |
40.7 |
70.7 |
82.8 |
100 |
|||||
Source: MoA
(1975a: 54).
Cohen and Weintraub (1975:49-50) noted that particular attention of critics in kinship/rist areas
was focused on fragmentation and diminution of holdings. It was stated that in many parts of the
country, population pressure on cultivated land has become serious. It was also
argued that the problem has in part been aggravated by the tendency of Ethiopian land tenure patterns to
promote diminution and fragmentation of plots.
In one way or another there has been a general parcelling out of the
holdings so that the average unit is small, and the actually cultivated area is
smaller still. Such smallholdings were
often found fragmented into several plots.
Gilkes (1975:121) has also argued that the Ethiopian farmer, whether a
tenant or a small freeholder, suffered from the size and fragmentation of his
holdings.
The MoA (1975a: 58-59) agricultural sample survey (1974/75) puts fragmentation “as a very
serious problem in some regions of
|
Holdings |
Total holdings (000 ha) |
Number of parcels |
|||||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4-5 |
6-9 |
10 and above |
||
|
Holdings |
4127 |
1650 |
1003 |
664 |
545 |
252 |
13 |
|
% |
100 |
40 |
24.3 |
16.1 |
13.2 |
6.1 |
0.3 |
MoA, 1975a: 59.
2.2.4. Land concentration and underutilization
Studies also show that given the existence of many
landlords, particularly in the south, there was concentration of land in few
hands while there were many land-starved and landless at the same time. It was also found that given the nature of
landlordism that existed, many of those big holdings were not utilized. Among the important measure, cited that led
to land concentration was government land grants. The maximum size of holdings in gasha for
the southern provinces of Illubabor, Sidamo, Shoa, and Keffa were 405, 180,
149, 135 respectively (MLRA, 1971) and in
those communal areas average percentage of absentee owners was 26 and their land to total privately-owned area
was 36.
A study report on such idle lands pointed out many
issues associated with the concentration and underutilization of land (Fesseha,
1970). It was found that available
estimates on the proportions of actual cultivated to uncultivated arable land
showed that by far a large percent of the country’s arable land had remained
idle. It was mentioned that by far a higher percent (ranging from 74 to 83.4%)
of the total arable land of the country had remained uncultivated. The most
important reason cited for such large idle lands was concentration of land
under non-farming elites. Moreover it was argued that the presence of a high
rate of absentee ownership was one of the reasons for such underutilization of
land. This was the case especially in the central, south, and southwestern provinces
where absentee owners constitute as high as 41.8% of all land owners in
Illubabor ( Fesseha 1970:139). It
was noted that in those areas held by absentee landlords, production in most
instances, was nil or, at best, less than optimum. Moreover, absentee landlords were found
reluctant to undertake capital investment on the lands, their major objective
being one sided, mainly acquisition of the land.
It was also argued that government land grant system
was largely responsible for such concentration of land. Negatu
(1970: 215) stated that among the problems associated with government
land grants was that land was given as reward for its own sake and that some
grantees used it, others sold it, and some others retained it for speculative
purposes. He concluded that considerable areas of granted land had remained
idle. It was found that land grants were
made to patriots, exiles, patriot’s wives and their children, ex-civil
servants, armed forces and police forces.
Grants were made in such amounts as
5 gashas for captains; 5 gashas for lieutenants; 3 gashas for sergeants,
and 2 gashas for officers of lower ranks.
Cohen and Weintraub (1975) also indicated that out of all grants
approximately 95% of the registered land grants and 75% of the unregistered
land grants had gone to members of civil service, military and police, and
national or provincial elites, whereas only 5% of the registered land grants
and 25% of the unregistered land grants had gone to landless or unemployed
citizens.
Dessalegn (1984:34) explained that the landed aristocracy
was one of the important social classes in the pre-revolution
Mesfin (1991) argued that there was inequity in the
land tenure system under the Imperial regime.
He stated that “In the whole country the proportion of peasants who
owned some land was slightly more than 49% while nearly 39% were landless
peasants” (p.82). He added that “the fundamental inequity of the land tenure
system under the ancient regime was not only a problem of tenancy. That more than 61% of the peasant households
cultivated only 26% of the land while only 18% of the landholds (sic)
had 53% of the land was painful for most.
That is the larger problem” (p.83).
Fesseha (1970), for instance, suggested the following
as the possible reasons as to why private owners (and these were largely those
grantees) kept such lands idle:
incompatibility of the individual’s financial position with the size of
the land, lack of technical capacity, lack of interest to be engaged in
agriculture (as they might have other important sources of income), hoarding
land for social prestige rather than economic importance, and holding land for
speculative purposes. He also added that
lack of mechanisms like progressive taxation to encourage full utilization of
land had contributed to such concentration and underutilization. As a result,
among other measures recommended after the land tenure study of MLRA in the
late 1960s was the need for progressive taxation on those lands kept idle.
The pre-1975 period land tenure had diversified forms
throughout the country and this is noted as one if the causes that hindered any
serious progress towards reforming the system.
Rist/kinship, private, church, and government tenures are used in this
study for the purpose of avoiding complications and making the discussion
congruent with most literature on the subject.
The rist/kinship tenure system was most prevalent in the northern part
of the country while the private tenure was found in the rest of the
country. At the same time government
tenure was most prevalent in the lowland and pastoral areas of the country. Church
tenure was associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The amount of land under each of those tenure
systems was never known with a reasonable degree of precision. A good example is that church lands were
estimated to constitute from 50 to mere 5 % of all lands.
Rist system was characterized by the principle of
acknowledging access to land (use rights and transfer rights without land
alienation) by all those descendants of people from a common ancestor and in an
ambilineal way. Reduced landlessness and
tenancy was among the positive attributes of this system compared to the
private tenure while diminution of holdings, land fragmentation and persistent
litigation over land access were among its serious problems cited in the
literature. With its Gult rights over those landholders, rist system had also
been an important element mediating the control of the peasantry by the regime
through those elites holding such rights.
The private tenure was recognized as the most dominant system during the
last days of the Imperial regime affecting some 60 % of peasants and 65 % of
the country’s population. It was largely
created by way of land granting by the crown to those members of the army who
went from the north and those who were loyal to the regime in the conquered
areas. Under this system land was sold
and exchanged, but given that all the land was originally state property and
that private holders had no absolute rights, it was different from the western
concept of freehold system. Serious land
concentration, exploitative tenancy, and insecurity have characterized the
private tenure system. Government tenure
reflected the predatory nature of the regime as it was established on those
lands snatched from people in the pastoral and other areas of the country. Though not known with precision, it is
indicated that nearly 47 % of all the land of the country and about 12 % of its
agricultural land were held under this title.
Under this tenure, land was used as a principal spoil of the then regime
given as a reward to its political supporters.
The land tenure system of the Imperial regime was
largely considered as a hindrance to the country’s development in general. It was made the most important cause of
political grievances that led to the overthrow of the regime. Institutional inadequacy- lack of necessary
legal framework, absolute arbitrary control of the land rights, and lack of
land administration organizations- had characterized the Imperial Ethiopian
Government’s land tenure system. Land
concentration for political reasons in the hands of absentee land lords and its
underutilization, unchecked and exploitative tenancy, tenure insecurity
including arbitrary eviction, diminution and fragmentation of farm holdings,
and other problems are noted as features of the Ethiopian land tenure system
that hindered the development of agriculture in general and the economy as a
whole.
3. LAND TENURE UNDER THE DERG REGIME
3.1. The 1975 land reform and abolition of diverse tenure
The 1975 land reform of the Derg has been considered
by many as a radical measure that has abolished the tenant-landlord relations
in
It aimed at fundamentally altering the then agrarian
relations and liberating the peasantry and making it owner of the fruits of its
work; increasing agricultural production; creating employment; distributing
land and increase rural income; and laying down the basis for the expansion of
industry. The basic provisions of the
proclamation include: public ownership of all rural lands; distribution of land
to the tiller in provinces with privately owned rural land (art 4); prohibitions
on transfer of use rights by sale, exchange, succession, mortgage or lease,
except upon death and then only to the wife, husband, or minor children of the
deceased or in their absence the children of the deceased who have achieved
majority; and, in the case of communal lands, possessory rights over the land
the peasants till at the time of the reform ( Art. 19). The power of administering land was vested in
the Ministry of Land Reform and Administration (MLRA) through Peasant
Associations at the grassroots level. The law provided ten hectare of land as
maximum a family can possess. No able
adult person was allowed to use hired labor to cultivate his holdings.
There is a general consensus among many writers and
observers that the land reform law was radical in its nature and content and
that it was an appropriate measure to take.
Teketel (1998) has concluded that there was no doubt that the Ethiopian
land reform has basically abolished the legal, political, and economic power of
the landed classes as a whole. On the
other hand, it is not adequately known to what extent the reform has
restructured (say for instance the average farm size peasants worked both as a
tenant and as landholder) landholding among the peasantry itself at a country-
wide level. Bruce et al (1993) also noted that the reform had a positive side. It abolished landlordism and the
exploitation of the peasantry by the landed classes and redistributed available
assets to the peasantry on a relatively equitable basis. They added that the reform has given rise to
a uniformity of tenure throughout the country (with the exception of the areas
in the periphery), thus doing away with the complexity of tenure arrangements
that in the past made rural development work difficult and time-consuming. All
peasants were assigned usufruct rights over the land they cultivated.
In addition some suggest that the land reform improved
the standard of living (level of income) of the former tenants by the amount of
the rent and other dues that they had to pay their landlords before the
redistribution of land. In the former private land tenure areas, it is also
asserted that land redistribution has eliminated rural unemployment by
safeguarding the right of the former tenants to a source of income (Kidane, 1990).
However many shortcomings of the land reform are also
cited, though it seems that they could be related more to the general agrarian
policies of the Derg than the land reform per se. Teketel (1998), for instance, argued that unlike in the tenancy areas, the land
reform had not brought any immediate material benefit to the majority of the
peasantry in the northern areas. Moreover, he added that the rigidities
attached to the land reform such as the immobility of land and labor had
important bearings on the peasantry in these famine-prone areas. Kidane (1990:114) in his analysis of a time
series data concluded that no clear improvement of the country's agriculture
has materialized as a result of the redistribution of land. He concluded that there was no general
improvement of agricultural production attributable to the redistribution of
land.
Then, regardless of the general assertion on the appropriateness of the
initial (1975) land reform, many scholars argue that the land tenure system
since then has badly affected the country’s agricultural production and
sustainable land use (see Yigremew, 1999).
According to Bruce, et al. (1993:2) the main shortcomings of the reform
were the following: that the land reform forced peasants to engage in periodic
redistribution of land to accommodate new claimants and new members of peasant
associations with the net effect of leveling down and diminution of individual
possessions; repeated redistribution gave rise to and exacerbated tenure
insecurity among peasant households, which was perhaps the most damaging aspect
of the reform; the socialization policies of the Derg, pursued with great haste
and without peasant consent, further heightened peasant insecurity, and led to
loss of incentives for land improvements or increased effort; and that the
extractive programs of the Derg impoverished peasant households and extended
and deepened rural poverty.
Similar conclusions were made by the Ministry of Agriculture (1987) Achefer-Shebedino Study. The study noted that the growing
population represented a severe pressure on land resources, with serious
ecological consequences, including soil erosion and deteriorating standard of
living. The explanations associated with the then land tenure problems were
that in order to accommodate the ever-growing farming population,
redistribution and allocation of farmland were being carried out in a desperate
and hazardous way. The fragmentation and
diminution of land as a result of redistribution and growing population had
created a sense of insecurity among peasants. And as there were no limits to
the scale of redistribution, and no minimum landholding size was set,
redistributions had led to excessive diminution of plots.
Survey of the literature on the land tenure during the
Derg regime (1975-1990) generally shows that diminution and fragmentation of
holdings, tenure insecurity and all its consequences, land degradation, and
inefficient allocation of land by way of restrictions on land transfer and to
some extent lack of appropriate land use and administration are the most
commonly cited problems. Many case
studies and some large-scale ones illustrate these situations. The most
important reason given for such problems was the continuous land redistribution
practice of the government.
3.2. Land tenure problems
3.2.1. Diminution and fragmentation of holdings
The Ministry of Agriculture (1987)
Achefer-Shebedino study, carried out during 1984-1985 in two weredas, in Gojjam
and Sidamo tried to demonstrate such a diminution process. The study seriously noted the problem of
continuous redistributions which resulted in diminution of holdings. For instance the study mentioned that holding
size of respondents from Achefer had dropped by almost 50% over a period of 10
years because of redistributions. The
admonition made was that in the foreseeable future redistribution would, if
unchecked, reduce peasant plots to uneconomic size.
|
Holding size in timad* |
1974 |
1984 |
||
|
% of total holdings |
% of respondents |
% of total holdings |
% of respondents |
|
|
0 |
- |
10.31 |
- |
- |
|
1-5 |
1.08 |
5.01 |
4.61 |
15.88 |
|
6-10 |
5.24 |
11.81 |
27.76 |
36.70 |
|
11-15 |
9.94 |
13.48 |
35.61 |
30.08 |
|
16-20 |
12.47 |
12.65 |
18.78 |
11.49 |
|
21-25 |
17.00 |
14.00 |
8.00 |
3.90 |
|
26-30 |
17.10 |
18.48 |
3.56 |
1.39 |
|
31-35 |
10.00 |
4.85 |
1.68 |
0.56 |
|
36-40 |
9.82 |
4.01 |
- |
- |
|
40-45 |
2.40 |
1.11 |
- |
- |
|
0ver 45 |
14.95 |
4.29 |
- |
- |
Source: Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) (1987:67).
* 1 timad is equivalent to 0.252 hectare.
Those figures from the table were taken to clearly
show the levelling down of holdings. In
the process, the largest holdings and the landless have disappeared. A more
exact measurement of the equity of landholding, the Gini coefficient, was noted
to be 0.383 in 1974 and 0.288 in 1984 in Achefer showing that the
redistribution had been effective in fostering equity of holdings (a
substantial reduction of inequality).
The study also showed that in Achefer, both those who owned and those
who rented their land in 1974 and earlier, had much less land during the study
time than they ploughed before the land reform. It pointed out that there were feelings of
insecurity among the majority of peasants.
The major reason for insecurity in Achefer was fear of
redistribution. In Achefer, since 1980
an average of five redistributions were carried out, and average holdings of
the respondents have been reduced by as much as roughly 50% after the land
reform.
Some similar studies show that the average
size of peasant holdings has diminished by far. Teketel (1998) has produced
data showing nation-wide changes for a period of fourteen years
(1974/75-1988/89).
Table 4. Percentage
Distribution of Number and Area of Operational Holdings (1974/75 and
1988/890)
|
Size (hectares) |
1974/75 |
1988/89 |
Changes |
|||
|
Number |
Area |
Number |
Area |
Number |
Area |
|
|
Up to 0.10 |
3.50 |
0.20 |
10.51 |
0.65 |
7.01 |
0.45 |
|
0.11-0.50 |
27.60 |
5.80 |
36.19 |
13.12 |
8.59 |
7.32 |
|
0.51-1.00 |
26.50 |
12.40 |
25.40 |
23.12 |
-1.10 |
10.72 |
|
1.01-2.00 |
23.40 |
22.30 |
20.16 |
35.22 |
-3.24 |
12.92 |
|
2.01-5.00 |
15.20 |
30.00 |
7.43 |
25.43 |
-7.77 |
-4.57 |
|
5.01-10.00 |
2.80 |
12.10 |
0.29 |
2.21 |
-2.51 |
-9.89 |
|
10.0 & above |
1.00 |
17.20 |
0.02 |
0.25 |
-0.98 |
-16.95 |
|
Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
|
Source: Adapted from Teketel, 1998:160.
The Table clearly shows that the majority of peasant
households both in the pre-reform (57%) and in the post-reform period (72%),
operated holdings of one hectare and less.
The total number of this group of “mini-plot” holders increased
substantially after the reform. On the
other hand, the middle category (1.01-5.0) and holdings of 2 to 5 hectares
together appear to have been strengthened after the land reform. A substantial change has occurred in the size
category of above 5 hectares. In the
pre-reform period (1974/75) households operating above 5 hectares constituted
3.8 % of households but held 29.3 percent of the total area. After the reform
(1988/89) however this group of households constituted 0.31 percent of
households and held only 2.6 percent of the total area. It is in this group therefore that a
significant change has occurred indicating the levelling down effect of the
land redistribution. It is also
interesting to note that there were households in the post-reform period with
holdings of above 10 hectares apparently “in contravention of the law”. (But it is insignificant, 0.02 and 0.25 % of
households and operated area). Gizachew
(1994) cited some instances that in some areas the average holding size was
found much smaller like in the case of the previous Sidamo province where the
average holding was reported to be 0.32 hectares.
Dessalegn (1994) stressed that farm plots were
becoming too small throughout the country.
In his words (P. 3): “ In the
enset zone, for example, many family holdings are now too small to farm, while
in parts of Northeast individuals work what may be termed ‘starvation plots’
”. In his other work (1997) he also
seriously underlined that
Many researchers have indicated that diminution of
holdings has many implications for agricultural development. One serious concern with this phenomenon is
that given the level of farming technology in this country, peasants with such
small holdings will not be able to produce enough food surplus for the market
or even for their families. For example, Gizachew (1994) pointed out that a
rough crude estimation of viable minimum economic holding size per household
under low and moderate input levels of technologies was estimated to range from
6.50 hectares to 5.37 hectares respectively.
Another group of six researchers (Mulat et al. 1998:5), after analyzing
data from different surveys and field research, concluded that the average farm
size of about one hectare for a family with approximately 5 persons was, at
best, barely adequate for feeding household members.
Another impact of smallholdings is related to the
adoption of new agricultural technology.
Low level of agricultural technology is one of the reasons frequently
mentioned for low level of agricultural production and productivity in this
country. Although sometimes “reluctance”
of peasants is given as an excuse for not adopting new technologies, it is more
associated with resource endowment than attitude. Here are some examples: Mulat et al. (1998) in their study on the
determinants of fertilizer use concluded the most important factor explaining
the quantity of fertilizer used per hectare is average farm size. As farm size increases, so does the intensity
of fertilizer use. Small farms need help
in intensifying their use of fertilizer in order to make broad based
improvements in farm productivity. Frew and Shilema (1997) in their study on
agricultural technology argued that tractors are uneconomical in fields that
are less than two hectares and a field length of less than 200 meters and
animal draught technology is recommended for a plot size of up to three
hectares. They noted that animal power
technology would be more efficient provided that it is supplemented with
improved and efficient implements. The researchers’ analysis of results in
experimenting with an improved plough shows that the main reason for peasants
not accepting the improved plough was the small size of land which could easily
be handled with the traditional maresha.
Fragmentation is also cited in the literature as a serious problem
constraining agriculture in all periods under review. There are no national studies after the 1975
reform but around that time studies show some 23% of holdings with five and
above number of plots in a province with the highest scale of
fragmentation. However, the national
average number of parcels (MoA 1975b:12) was reported to be 2.46. It was also noted in some case studies that
fragmentation has been aggravated as a result of land redistribution mechanisms
(Fassil, 1980; Mengistu and Sjoberg, 1994).
Fassil (1980) in his study in Welmera wereda (1978),
and in
There are many causes for this but the one more
associated with the redistribution is that peasants were allotted different
plots from different areas for the sake of balancing soil fertility and
agro-ecology of household holdings.
Bruce et al. 1993 noted that land redistributions by peasant associations
after 1975 did not do away with fragmentation. Often, lands with different
quality were distributed by the peasant association (PA). The rigorously
egalitarian ethos of the time usually required that the land of the peasant
association be divided into several blocks of different quality, and each
family receive some land within each block. As we will see later, this
phenomenon was more fostered by a more radical type of land redistribution
practice such as that carried out for implementing the land reform. Other reallocations since then generally did
not reshuffle holdings in such manner.
3.2.2. Tenure insecurity and its impact
In the literature,
there are not many
empirical studies on the impact of tenure insecurity on agricultural production
and productivity as well as on land degradation. In his 1997 paper Dessalegn argued that
peasants had little incentive to invest on the land and manage it properly
since ones holdings could be transferred to others at any time. He added that security of tenure and
efficient land use were sacrificed on the misguided belief that redistribution
would promote egalitarianism. Aklilu and
Tadesse (1994: 15) concluded in the same way saying, “In relation to the land policy, we believe
that the issue of tenure security is a critical one. We have learnt that the peasants tend to
produce more if they assured, in no ambiguous way, not only the right of
possession but also the right of ownership, with all its implications therein.”
The MoA’s Achefer-Shebedino study noted that among
respondents 82.7% in Achefer feel insecure of their present holdings. The major reason for insecurity in Achefer
was fear of redistribution. The study noted that in Achefer an average of five
redistributions were carried out within the time period following the 1975 land
reform to that of 1984/85. Tenure insecurity was not a result of only a
continuous redistribution of land. There
was land eviction in many parts of the country in the name of villagization,
resettlement, establishment of agricultural producers cooperatives,
establishment of state farms and other policies. Although the government has succeeded in none
of these policies, they had a tremendous effect on peasants’ production and
lives.
One single important large-scale study on causes of
frequent re-allotments and sub-division of holdings was that conducted by the
Ministry of Agriculture (1989). The study sample included 30 Awrajas, 87
weredas, and 171 rural kebeles of dega and woina dega areas. The study findings show that there were many
reasons for subdivision and fragmentation of land during the Derg period. Villagization, cooperativization, expansion
of state farms, land requirements for training and office construction by many
government agencies and others are reported in the study. The amount of land used for such
purposes was 2,043,023 ha, and the number of peasants made to change their
plots (partially or wholly) was
1,967,944 (P.157). In
addition, the study shows that the problem in the case of production cooperatives
was not only peasant eviction but underutilization of land as well. Among the problems associated with this were
that production cooperatives had been granted lands beyond their operational
capacity and this has led to underutilization and unutilization of scarce
lands. For instance the average holding
of a member of agricultural producers cooperatives (APCs) was 1.61 ha exceeding
the average peasant holding by 0.63 ha.
According the 1989 MoA study, the major causes of land
re-allotment (shigshig) included: expansion of state farms, establishment of
APCs, establishment of different institutions and projects, villagization,
expansion of towns, schools and adult training centers. And the major causes of land sub-division
(shinshena) were land redistribution (dilldil), land re-allotment (shigshig),
allocation of land to new households and other applicants, and peasants’
interest to cultivate different crops at different locations. Additional causes of shigshig and shinshena
included absence of land use and land administration policies, absence of
population policy, absence of livestock policy, absence of detailed guidelines
for the implementation of land related legislations, and multiplicity of
decision-making bodies on landholding issues (for instance PA, MoA, political
cadres, administrators, plan offices).
The study mentioned that those negative impacts of
shigshig and shinshena included: increasing litigations over land, lack of
tenure security, diminution of holdings (in 1977 E.C. average peasant holding
was 0.98 ha but the required size of holdings for subsistence of a family was
found to be 1.53 ha (MoA 1989:47)), lack of interest in growing perennial
crops, lack of interest in keeping land fertility, inefficient use of working
time, difficulties in looking after crops, cultivation of marginal lands,
unemployment, decrease in livestock holdings, difficulties in conducting
extension services, lack of investment on land, and loss of arable land because
of increased boundaries between plots.
Regarding the impacts of such insecurity, it is argued
in the literature that the redistributive land policy, which is blamed for
diminution of holdings and farm plots and all their consequences, is also found
contributing to the phenomenon of land degradation. In the process of attempting to accommodate
new claimants for land, communal grazing lands were redistributed for farming,
and in the face of large number of livestock, this has again led to overgrazing
and other mismanagement of the already minimal grazing lands. It was also mentioned that the process has
resulted in overusing the steep degraded lands, and abandoning some of the
traditional soil management practices (Gizachew 1994). Yared (1995) observed in
his fieldwork that the process of redistribution has resulted in changes in
land use in that a fair amount of fallow land has been brought under
cultivation. Many farmers have also
abandoned the practice of periodic fallowing of land.
Teferi (1995) has also noted the same observations
from field research in
3.2.3. Inefficient
allocation of land
It is noted that as transfers of rights on land were largely
blocked, (such as transfer by way of
sale, mortgage, lease, and other rental arrangements), land could not be
allocated where it was most efficiently utilized. Redistributive policies were
partially based on equity considerations and this has hampered productivity and
production, as many of those new possessors may not properly utilize land. It is well known that poor farmers may not have
the necessary means of production like traction power and even inputs like
seeds and labor. Those industrious and enterprising peasants may then be denied
access to land which otherwise would have utilized it more efficiently. Surplus food production could not be achieved
with such technological conditions and size of holdings and without mechanism
of transferring land for better production and productivity. The MoA Achefer Shebadino (1987) study
mentions such kind of complaints made by peasants in Achefer wereda. In his
1997 paper Dessalegn argued that security of tenure and efficient land use were
sacrificed on the misguided belief that redistribution would promote
egalitarianism and that the legal prohibition of land transfers had meant that
the consolidation of plots and the more efficient use could not be undertaken.
3.2.4. Inadequate land administration
Land laws were not adequately provided which could
have resulted in ensuring peasant rights by ways of regulating land
rights. Different land administration
guidelines, coupled with absence of competent and able government agency
responsible for land issues, have resulted in arbitrary and high-handed land
administration by local authorities and even political cadres. Peasants were
evicted from their possessions in the name of redistribution or other
government interventions arbitrarily and without adequate compensation.
The MoA (1989) study showed that lack of policies on
land use and administration was among causes of subdivision and continuous
reallocation of holdings. There was no land use policy, no policy on
obligations of land users, and no minimum limit of holdings for a
household. Lack of an institution vested
with land administration duties resulted in mis-utilization of land for
different purposes and by different organizations, lack of policy and
incentives to encourage the development of land in less favorable
agro-ecological zones leading to concentration of agricultural activities in
dega and woina dega agro-ecologies (88% of the rapidly-growing population living
in these areas). Lack of policy on
livestock development which has led to overgrazing and less productivity of
animal products.
Bruce et al.
(1993) also noted the issue of local politics indicating that one of the
most common complaints concerning access to land, aside from the absolute
shortage of land, was that land was not divided "fairly" under the
Derg. That "unfair" division was attributed to the fact that peasant
association officials favored their friends and kinsmen and those who gave them
bribes with more or better quality land. The case of production cooperatives
taking the best land for their members was also mentioned.
Discussions with previous Peasant Association
leadership and review of archives in
Interestingly, it was found that there were many
authorities involved in the decision-making process on land in the study kebele
mentioned above. For instance, wereda administration, wereda peasant
association, kebele administration, political cadres, wereda villagization task
force were among such decision-makers. In some cases like allocation of land
for church revenue, some elected elders were also involved and the issue had to
be approved by the community at large.
There was no consultation with the rural kebele leadership in
confiscating land for urban-related activities like construction of offices.
The wereda administration simply informs the kebele about its decisions and
instructs it to compensate those peasants whose land was taken by giving land
in other places. However, many of those peasants were not compensated, as there
was not enough land to do so. The
processes of villagization, establishment of agricultural production
cooperatives, afforestation and other conservation measures have shown that no
specific organization was entrusted with land use regulations and
administration and land allocation decisions were made by local political
cadres and administrators without due regard to the rights of peasants and the
economic implications of such decisions.
Given the appreciation of problems that existed in the
land tenure system under the Imperial regime, changes were not unexpected to
accompany the political upheaval of the 1974 Revolution. Since the 1960s, it
was felt that the tenure system had serious problems that needed specific
measures. Land reform laws including in
areas of tenancy, taxation, administration, and other important tenure issues
were already under consideration. The
Revolution expectedly brought about the 1975 land reform. That reform was considered radical, by way of
it all lands were made state property and individuals were given free access to
land in the form of usufruct rights but not alienable by ways of sale,
exchange, or mortgage. It abolished the
landlord-tenant relations and the political as well as economic power of the
landed class. However, the reform law
was also restrictive in such a way that the pillars of property
rights-transferability and security were constrained. It provided the monopoly of land ownership to
the state and limited rights to use only.
Even use rights were not permanently transferable, as they could not be
sold, exchanged, mortgaged and even not leased except in particular
circumstances. Limited number of those
rights and lack of detailed provisions about their enforcement and
administration also meant that the reform law had not adequately addressed the
issue of insecurity.
Inappropriateness of land tenure under the Derg was, however, much more
exacerbated by many of its policies and administration following the already
constrained land rights under the land reform law. Lack of adequate institutional framework
(both in terms of necessary legislations and organizations), periodic land
redistributions, peasant arbitrary evictions in the name of rural development
programs (such as villagization, establishment of agricultural production
cooperatives, environmental conservation, and others), among others, have
resulted in perpetuating many of those critical economic problems of the
Imperial land tenure system.
Land laws were not adequately provided and different
land administration guidelines coupled with absence of competent and able
government agency responsible for land issues, have resulted in arbitrary and
high-handed land administration by local authorities and even political cadres.
As a result, peasants could not had a feeling of tenure security in their
holdings. This is noted by some people as resulting in lack of incentive by
peasants in investing in land and managing land properly. Periodic and unplanned
land redistributions are also mentioned among the causes of diminution and
fragmentation of holdings. In the
literature the results of such a process have been noted as exacerbating
peasant poverty and vulnerability, hindering adoption of modern technologies
and land degradation. Moreover, legal
and practical restrictions in land transfer rights to better-off hands,
anti-smallholder attitude of the government that favored state farms and
production cooperatives, coupled with other rural policies and activities that
exacerbated tenure insecurity had resulted in misallocation and
underutilization of land and other resources.
For instance, it was found that regardless of all priorities and
privileges given to production cooperatives (mostly at the cost of peasant
holders) they were found largely less productive than peasant farms. On the other hand, like what happened during
the Imperial regime, access to land used to be a mechanism of reward to those
supporters of the regime and its arbitrary administration has led to corruption
and favoritism at the local level. As a
result of all this, land tenure issues remained one of the causes of the
country’s development problems in general, and food insecurity and land
degradation in particular.
4. THE
4.1. The current land tenure system
Immediately after the downfall of the Derg, nobody was
certain what course the new government would take regarding land tenure. The Transitional Government itself had declared
that the issue of private versus public ownership would be settled in the
process of developing the new federal constitution. When the new federal
constitution came out, the issue was settled in favor of public ownership of
land. Then, like the Derg, the present
government maintained the state ownership of land.
In the 1995 constitution Art 40 (which is about
property rights) it is provided that
“The right to ownership of rural land and urban land, as well as of all
natural resources is exclusively vested in the state and in the Peoples of
Ethiopia. Land is a common property of
the Nations, Nationalities and peoples of
The constitution also states (Art. 51) that the
Federal Government shall enact laws for the utilization and conservation of
land and other natural resources. Art.
52 also states that Regional Governments have the duty to administer land and
other natural resources according to federal laws. Such law was enacted in July
1997 - “ Rural Land Administration Proclamation, No. 89/1997.” This law vested
Regional Governments with the power of land administration (defined as “the
assignment of holding rights and the execution of distribution of holdings”
(Art. 2 Sub Art. 6). Holding rights were
also defined as “the right any peasant shall have to use rural land for
agricultural purposes as well as to lease and, while the right remains in
effect, bequeath it to his family member; and includes the right to acquire
property thereon, by his labor or capital, and to sell, exchange and bequeath
same” (Art 2 Sub Art. 3).
The rural land law has also provisions on distribution
of holdings: Art. 2, Sub Art. 4 defines distribution of holdings
as “a rural land allocation measure taken at intervals, upon decision of the
community, with a view to assigning holding rights in a fair and proportionate
manner as well as to demarcating land for communal use by peasants.” Art 6 Sub Art. 1 also provides that distribution of holdings is the only way
through which peasants lose their holdings.
According to this law, a land administration law enacted by each
regional council shall, among other things, “ensure free assignment of
holdings, without differentiation of the sexes; as well as secure against
eviction and displacement from holdings against any grounds other than total or
partial distribution of holdings, etc.”.
It can be argued that at least up to now, there are no
fundamental differences between the legal framework of the Derg and the present
government on rural land issues. Moreover, if those policy changes made by the
Derg following its mixed economy version are taken into consideration, there is
more continuity than change. Land leases, commercial farms, temporary halt
regarding land redistribution, villagization, production cooperatives, and
other similar changes were already introduced by the Derg. Not only officially stated policies but also
what has been taking place on the ground is also more important. In practical aspects as well, there are more
similarities in land administration between the two regimes than differences
(see Dessalegn, 1997; Yigremew, 1997, 1999; Mekonnen, 1999; Ege, 1997; Hoben,
2000).
However, land administration has now been a
de-concentrated function of regional governments and its control has become
more directly under political bodies than technical ministries. Land redistribution practices which were halted by the Derg since 1989 have been
started under the present government.
Land laws have also provisions on it also in some regions it seems that
no more redistributions are anticipated (for instance in Tigray).
As per the delegation of the authority of land
administration to the regions, regional governments enact different laws on
land administration, land utilization, taxation, and other related
policies. Two cases are in point. Tigray Regional government has promulgated
Rural Land Use Law in 1997 (Proclamation No. 23/89). This law asserts that land
redistributions done by the local administration prior to the proclamation are
final. It allows land rentals by the holders with a maximum period of two years
for traditional farming and ten years for farming using non-traditional
technologies, but prohibits land rentals for indefinite period of time. Land
administration is vested in the councils throughout the hierarchy and will be
done according to the guidelines provided by the Executive Committee of the
Regional Council. Use rights are
life-long and can be transferred through inheritance to children and to
parents. Sub-divisions below one-fourth
of a hectare are prohibited. Holding
rights also depend on residence in the kebele in that those who have abandoned
their kebele for more than two years will lose their holdings. Such lands will be allotted to those who did
not get land before. Exception to this are those who have received rural land
during the last redistribution though they now live in towns and those
ex-fighters under Tigrian Peoples Liberation Front / TPLF who are currently
members of the armed forces, are engaged in other activities, or are
deceased.
Similarly the Amhara
Regional government has passed two
land laws since 1996. One is on land
redistribution (Proclamation on the Re-allotment of the Possession of Rural
Land No. 16, 1996 and its amendment), which was implemented in some areas of
the region and the other is the law on “Rural Land Administration and Use”
provided in 2000.
The 1996 land redistribution law (“Re-allotment of the
Possession of Rural Land”) and its implementation has been the subject of some
detailed case studies (Yigremew, 1997, 2000b; Ege, 1997, Teferi 1997). As per what was stated in the law, the rationale was readjusting the unbalanced
possession of rural land created as a result of grabbing land by officials of
the Derg in the rural areas. It was also
noted as part of the measures taken to do away with oppressions by the Derg
regime, and to make the peasants beneficiaries of the region’s rapid economic
change. The scope of application of the
policy was limited to those areas of the Amhara Region which were not under the
control of EPRDF before the fall of the Derg. The proclamation also prohibited
land possession by peasants outside their residential kebele. As per the proclamation, the regional
council was vested with the power of issuing policies and directives necessary
for the implementation of the proclamation. Accordingly, plans, policies, and
guideline, have been prepared by the council and were disseminated throughout
the administrative hierarchy. The
proclamation also provided for the payment of compensation for the fruits of
land to the previous possessors by the new possessors of the land. Later on, a guideline was provided from the
Regional Council on how to effect the compensation and payments and all those
alleged bureaucrats and feudal remnants were not entitled to such compensation.
In the case of the 1996 land redistribution of the
Amhara Region, social equity consideration of the land redistribution with the
head count as a basic criterion had not been most important and was replaced by
a political criterion. According to the
land reallocation policy, peasants were stratified into five social categories:
“bureaucrats”, “remnant feudal”, rich peasants, middle peasants, and poor
peasants. Redistribution was then
carried out using such political criteria in such a way that regardless of
their family size, all those so-called “bureaucrats” and “remnant feudal” were
allowed to hold a maximum of only one hectare of land while the other
categories were allowed to have up to three hectares.
Many points were raised regarding the policy and its
implementations. It was known that it
has preceded the 1997 Federal land law (which was to guide regional land
policies according to the constitutional provisions), it had political
objectives rather than social and economic ones, its implementation was
secretive and the whole process was highly politicized. From preliminary studies it was also found
that the results of the policy were largely tenure insecurity, land
degradation, holding diminution, and negative results on production and land
utilization (Mekonnen, 1999; Yigremew, 1997, 2000b; Hoben, 2000).
The Amhara region land law on
“Rural Land Administration and Use” provided in 2000 is an example of the new
regional issues on land policy. The proclamation acknowledges three types of
holding arrangements, viz. private, communal, and state. Any person living in rural areas of the
region whose age is 18 and above years is said to have access to the necessary
agricultural land freely. Land can be
transferred to family members by ways of inheritance or gift. In addition to farm households, the law
provides the right to use land to mass organizations, religious institutions,
governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and as well as
private investors. It also provides
landholders’ with the right to rent out their holdings, and to transfer land by
way of inheritance to those who are caring for the holder. It is stated that people who will lose their
holdings for public purposes will be compensated. The law does not rule out
redistribution but provides conditions for it. It is provided that land
redistribution will not be carried out unless it is proved it will not hamper
productivity; it is supported by the society, supported by study and decided by
law. However, it states that land
without legitimate claimant will be allotted to those landless and those with
smaller holdings.
A group of land tenure specialists from universities
(local and abroad), had made an assessment of rural land tenure issues in
Many others also seem to conclude that there
are problems with the current land tenure system. From his recent studies in
Amhara, Oromia and Tigray regions, Tekie
(2000a) found that there is an insecurity problem in the current rural
land tenure system. In his
conclusion (p.103) he noted that “ … the government is faced with only one
imperative policy option: a movement away from the existing insecure tenure
system towards a more stable and secured one.” Tekie (2000b) also pointed out that
tenure, “defined in terms of years that the farming household had user rights
on a given plot, is positively and significantly related to farmers’
probability of participating in soil conservation activity…” (p.26). He concluded that tenure and insecurity
variables are very important in determining the decision to invest or not to
invest on soil conservation. “Thus, a policy environment that guarantees the
security of land occupancy by farmers, viz, reduces future uncertainty in
holdings, could help in generating the right incentives for combating the
threats of soil erosion” (p. 30). In a
symposium organized by Inter-Africa
Group (1992: 6-7) it was concluded: “There was a consensus that
the current system, because it does not guarantee security of tenure and
undermines incentives, has detrimental effects on agricultural productivity and
natural resource conservation.” Another scholar also concluded that “… current
land policy does not give farmers secure rights over the land they use, does
not maintain equitable access to land over time, does not provide incentives
for investment in improvements or conservation, and does not encourage farmers’
entrepreneurial and experimental efforts to better their lot. From a policy perspective, it does not foster
agricultural intensification, improved environmental management, accretional
capital formation, or rural development”
(Hoben, 2000:7).
4.2. The current debate on land tenure
Rural land policy has remained one of the sources of
disagreement and focus of debate among politicians, academicians and other
concerned parties in
During the transition period of the current regime,
when the government had not yet defined its policy on rural land, much concern
was shown by different sections of the society as well as by international
agencies and the issue had been the focus of debate. Later on, the ruling party made it clear that
the policy on land was to continue more or less on the same lines to that of
the Derg’s policies: land ownership remained vested in the state and this was
enshrined in the 1995 constitution and peasants and pastoralists have been
granted usufruct rights. Moreover, the
government stipulated in its major policy documents that rural land
redistribution will continue as deemed necessary.
An assessment of such land debate in present day
As
indicated in the introduction, the current debate on the land issue focuses on
ownership and on private-state dichotomy. State ownership of land has been
strongly advocated by the ruling party and some other students in the field
while private ownership is favored by western economic advisors, international organizations like The
World Bank (WB 1992), many opposition political parties and some scholars as
well.
Generally,
the arguments towards those positions are well-established elsewhere and not
peculiar to
Gebru (1998:9), argues against
privatization saying:
... privatization of land will create a
massive eviction of peasants and the displacement of pastoralists. Landless and
poor peasants, who comprise the overwhelming majority of the rural population,
will be the first victims of that policy. Moreover, the pre-reform landlords,
who battened on the meager ‘surplus’ produced by the peasants, mostly tenants,
will now be replaced by ‘capitalist’ farmers who will alienate small peasants
from their land.
Gebru cited empirical evidence where a limited
penetration of capital in the central and southern parts of the country caused
massive misery to peasants and tenants.
His worries also have a nationality dimension in that in the experience
mentioned above, “The victims of the onslaught of the penetration of capital
were peasants and pastoralists from the oppressed nationalities. It gave rise
to the exacerbation of the oppression and exploitation of peasants and
pastoralists of those nationalities.” With that horror in mind, he expressed
his fear saying: “Should the same thing
be allowed to happen again because capital covets to swallow their plots of
land?” (p. 10).
Fantu (1994: 139-40) is another scholar who argues on
the same lines. His argument is that
given the country’s meager industrial base and limited opportunities for
non-agricultural pursuits, land is the only productive asset available to the
majority of the rural population and stresses the utmost importance of its
equitable distribution. He also warns
“the commoditization of land would turn the clock back to the situation before
the 1974 revolution. It would bring back
the former landlords, open up the possibility of large-scale peasant evictions
and thus create a massive influx of pauperized and destitute migrants into the
towns”. He even notes that measures should be included in the legislation to
prevent future inequalities emerging.
On
the other hand, many of those political parties that are in opposition to the
current ruling party have opted for private ownership of land. There are also
some scholars supporting this position. One issue commonly noted by those
political parties is the issue of peasants’ unrestricted economic rights on
land including the right to sell. Those who scholarly argue towards this
anti-state land ownership position do, implicitly or explicitly, also support
this argument. The issues of tenure
insecurity and all its economic consequences are also emphasized. However, their argument is more informed by
the past experience of the country in state ownership of land than other
normative theoretical issues. They
stress the need for constraining the controlling power of the government on the
peasantry by way of land ownership and all its other consequences. In this line, there are arguments, for
instance, that since the 1975 land reform, Ethiopian peasants have become
“tenants of the state” (see for instance Teketel, 1998; Mesfin, 1999;
Dessalegn, 1992). There are arguments that
the 1975 land reform has “...replaced the landlord with the state, providing
the latter direct and unencumbered access to the peasantry” (Dessalegn,
1992:47). Another scholar also contended
that the Derg made itself the owner of
the land transforming
Economic
concerns have also been reflected in such arguments. The most pronounced problem of such a system
is noted as tenure insecurity and all its consequences and has led commentators
to suggest the following. It is argued
that the government needs to re-instate the principle of private ownership of
land, and affirm the right of peasants to hold their plots as private property
with clear title deeds. “The only way peasant confidence will be restored, and
insecurity of tenure abolished thus enabling peasants to take their land as
their assets and to work it with great effort, is if peasants are assured that
no one can take their land from them.”
This was noted as particularly important in the light of the experience
of the last fifteen years. (Dessalegn, 1992:53). Elsewhere he underlined that “
… freehold is the best means of ensuring absolute tenure security. Security of holding and pride of possession
will restore peasant confidence which has been shattered by fifteen years of
state ownership and socialist agrarian policies under the Derg. Freehold will provide strong incentives to
peasants to invest on their land, and will make land transactions easier and
more efficient.” (Dessalegn 1994:12).
Mesfin (1999) has also pointed out that the economic impact of such
state ownership was making it difficult to the peasant to develop the
productivity of the land and his labor as he has seen the land does not belong
to him and that it can be taken away by the state whenever necessary.
In a symposium on The Ethiopian economy it
was reported that there was a consensus that the current system, because it
does not guarantee security of tenure and undermines incentives, has
detrimental effects on agricultural productivity and natural resource
conservation. But, no consensus was
reached as to whether or not the solution was to be found in the privatization
of land. Those who argued for
privatization maintained that: i) only
private ownership will ensure security of tenure and provide the peasant with
the incentives necessary to make investments and long-term improvements on the
land and, ii) one cannot move towards a market economy while keeping land-the
most vital means of production in an agricultural economy-outside the operation
of the market (Inter-Africa Group, 1992:6-7).
The ruling party’s and other people’s argument that if
peasants are given unrestricted land rights, then they will sell their lands
and they will become landless is judged as unfounded and if it happens in
extraordinary situations, it is not considered as disastrous as has been argued
by those who are against it (Dessalegn, 1992:53; 1999:10; Mesfin 1999:13).
Dejene (1999:45) has noted:
The view that the state will prevent
excessive concentration of land amongst the rich and prevent the dispossession
of the poor by imposing restrictions on the ownership or transfer of land has
been challenged … The equity concerns of
governments could, if they are genuine, be met through appropriate policy
instruments such as the specification of farm-size ceilings without inhibiting
land market. Unnecessary restrictions may deny efficient farmer access to
farmland and would contribute to underutilization of available land.
As mentioned above, Dessalegn (1997) has seriously
noted that the country’s land tenure system has long been the major cause of
problems of
4.2.2. Some queries about the debate
In his study on the current land debate Yigremew
(2001a) has raised some queries on the issues raised above. He noted that it
was somewhat ironical, particularly for an external observer, that first,
regardless of a market economy policy of the new regime land remained under
state ownership, and second, that the
“constitutionally resolved” issue of land ownership has continued to be
a source of hot debate even among political parties. Then he pointed out some
of the issues not well addressed by the “debate” on the land issue: (i) there
was a total absence of the opinions and interests of the peasants and nomadic
pastoralists in the discussions on rural land tenure; (ii) could the form of
ownership serve as a guarantee of having respected land rights (as argued by
supporters of each type of ownership)?
(iii) why a fight over a single tenure arrangement? Would it not be
rather important to have a combination of different tenure arrangements
wherever necessary? (iv) given the economic situation of the peasantry and
experiences in some countries, is not there a potential danger of dispossession
of peasants by way of land transactions?
(v) could the horror of land sale justify state ownership, i.e., are not
there other administrative mechanisms of constraining dispossession? (vi) are
food production and long-term growth given due consideration in the argument
towards large-scale/modern farm production by those proponents of
individualized land rights? (vii) are implications for long term social and
political stability considered in those suggested options? and (viii) are there
adequate explanations as to the proper functioning of the market in the
Ethiopian situation?
Though rural women in general constitute half of the
population and the labor required, and manage about 35-40 % of the land in
Rural women in general, and female-headed households
in particular are found to have less access to such a crucial productive
resource.
The existing
literature indicates that the disadvantages experienced by rural women in
Though ambilineal patterns are the norm in
grain-producing highland communities of
This situation has many implications for women’s
access to land. First, the fact that
land is registered in the name of the husband and not the wife weakens women’s
claim in general and in the case of divorce in particular. Second, as access to rural land by peasants
depends on one’s residence in a given territorial jurisdiction (peasant
association and now kebele Administration), women forfeit their chances of
having access to land whenever they go to their husbands’ locations or leave
their previous residence after they divorce or become widow. Moreover, as they are expected to go to their
husbands’ residence, unlike sons, daughters usually miss out from the
allocation of land by the family as well. In general, young women, divorced
women and even sometimes widowed women without children are considered as
transients and not permanent dwellers of a given area as a result of which they
are not given due attention in land allocation.
Another
disadvantage of rural women occurs for the reason that they had limited
membership in Peasant Associations (kebele administrations). Since 1975, and now land policies in
Women were also
disadvantaged because they usually had smaller family size as female-headed
households. During the Derg regime family size was one important criterion for reallocating land to
peasants. It was then found that
peasants with larger family size used to have better access to farmland. Generally, female-headed households were
found having fewer members in resulting in a disadvantageous position in the
allocation of land.
Given a great deal of similarities and continuity of
land tenure policy and practices between the Derg and the present regime, it
does not seem that women are better-off now than before. Of course, nowadays, in this country, the
issue of women’s equality has become the language of the day more than ever
before. All important government documents from the constitution to
environmental policy have given special attention to women. By 1993, the government has even provided the
first national policy on Ethiopian women. There is also an effort towards
establishment of many women’s affairs offices throughout the government
structure. Donor agencies, NGOs, and other development partners as well have
shown a heightened interest in this respect.
The 1995 Federal Constitution (Art. 7) provides that “ Women have the
right to acquire, administer, control, use and transfer property. In particular, they have equal rights with
men with respect to use, transfer, administration and control of land. They shall also enjoy equal treatment in the
inheritance of property.” More claims
are also made by those officials that women have been beneficiaries in land
redistributions done after the Derg (see Yigremew (1997) for the case of the
1997 land redistribution of the Amhara Region).
However, it does not seem that women’s
access and control of land has been improved much. In the case of the 1997 land
redistribution micro-level studies (for instance, Yigremew 1997, 1999) found
that women (and these are largely household heads) had been given land in more
or less equal shares to that of men. For
example, it was found that in one Kebele
out of those 306 women who applied for land 199 (65 %) got some while
the rest 107 (35 %) did not get any. The percentage for men is 69 and 31
respectively. The male-female ratio of applicants in percentage was 62 to 38
and those who got land was 60 to 40. On
the average women were allotted 0.52 hectares while men got 0.49 hectare of
land. In another study of two rural
kebeles, the outcomes of the redistribution were that on the average men were
given 0.41 hectare while women were given 0.47 hectares of land.
However, access to land and its utilization
are not limited to and guaranteed by land redistribution practice alone. As a result, it was found that after two
years of land redistribution (in July-August 1999), the male-headed households
have augmented their holdings while female-headed ones had even lost some of
their allotted plots. Table 5 shows that although women had, on the average,
received relatively larger size of land during the land redistribution in the
final analysis, after two years, they were found having less holdings (about
56% of men’s holdings).
|
Means of acquisition |
Men |
Women |
|
0.41 |
0.47 |
|
|
Acquired after
the redistribution & by other means |
0.48 |
0.03 |
|
Total average
holding |
0.89 |
0.5 |
Source: Figures taken from Yigremew (2001:27)
The reason why women had smaller holdings than men despite better
treatment of women than men during the initial redistribution was that men had
better access to land in the form of inheritance, gifts, rental and other
mechanisms than women. Moreover, it was
found that some women had lost their plots given during the redistribution
either by way of denial by previous holders or other mechanisms.
This shows that redistribution is only one
means of having access to land and access to land is a more dynamic phenomenon
than what is assumed in the official thinking.
This has also found in other areas of the country. In Ada wereda, central Ethiopia, it was
found (Etenesh, 1999) that land acquiring mechanisms of purchase, inheritance,
gifts by family, allocation by government and rental, were used by male-headed
households while only the last two- government allocation and rentals - were
used by female-headed households. An
important conclusion which could be drawn from such situations is that women
generally have less access to land than men and this could not be totally
addressed by way of land redistribution alone.
4.2. Summary of the current land tenure situation
The above discussions on the land issues
under the current regime show that there is more continuity than change in the
areas of rural land policy and administration.
As those micro-level studies and arguments by many show, those major
land tenure and administration problems that existed during the Derg are
prevailing. As a result land issues
remained a focus of debate and differences among those concerned about the
country’s development. This is ironical
in that major principles of land issues were said to be “resolved” by the 1995 constitution and yet
many political parties oppose such provisions and that state ownership was
maintained regardless of the free-market economy policy of the regime. It is also interesting to observe that the
government on the one hand appreciates, in many of its development policies,
those serious tenure-related problems that existed under its predecessors (such
as diminution of holdings, tenure insecurity and its result of disincentives to
production and land management, maladministration of land, etc.) and on the
other, repeats those things that perpetuated those problems. Arbitrary and political land redistribution
resulting in serious negative repercussions in tenure security and land
management is the most compelling event that has exacerbated preoccupations
about the future of land tenure in this country. Except those already mentioned
standard arguments made by the government, there are no explicitly stated or
thoroughly investigated causes for such government behavior on land
issues. One scholar familiar with the
political economy of Ethiopian land tenure pointed out additional and
unofficial reasons of cultural beliefs, ideological orientation, and the
strategic advantage of state ownership of land for political stability and
agricultural development (Hoben 2001:16).
It was also Dessalegn’s (1994:ix)
apprehension before land issues were enshrined in the 1995 constitution that
there were indications “that land policy may be sacrificed for political and
doctrinal purposes”. The political
primacy in land administration has been demonstrated by the 1996 land redistribution
of the Amhara Region where access to land was based primarily on political
criteria of participation or not in the Derg local administrative structures.
Neither social equity nor economic considerations were given enough attention
in such politically motivated redistribution.
As a result of such problems in the land
tenure system, land policy issues remained the focus of debate and source of
differences. This “debate” is however
devoid of participation of peasants and pastoralists, civil societies and other
concerned parties. It also focuses
narrowly on ownership issues and is not based on the Ethiopian and
international experiences and theories. Such features of the land debate in
this country have also diminished the possibility of influencing future policy
making on land matters.
5. SUMMARY ANALYSIS OF THE LAND TENURE SYSTEMS UNDER THE DIFFERENT REGIMES
The above survey of literature on the Ethiopian land
tenure systems particularly since the Derg period shows that, among other
things, research work on land tenure has not been done at a national level and
rigorously; there is concentration on food crop-producing and central
and northern areas and lack of attention to other (cash crop producing, nomadic
pastoral) areas and other regions; there is total neglect of urban and peri-urban
land issues; there is focus on de jure issues (like legislations) and lack of
enough empirical studies on de facto situations at the local level; absence of
studies made on the current regionalized land policy and administration, and
there are no studies that draw lessons from relevant international experiences.
Therefore, it should be noted that those previous
discussions are based on such literature, and an attempt has been made in this
section to briefly examine those arguments and views and try to pinpoint those
areas where more research is needed.
Careful observations and understanding of the current Ethiopian
situation based on empirical micro-level studies, the economic theory of land
tenure, international experience, - all play their part in the following
discussions. The focus will however be on the situation of the rural land
tenure system after the 1975 period as this is the timeframe directly relevant
to the existing situations.
As per the literature, from the point of view of their
economic features, the above discussions of the Ethiopian rural land tenure
systems under the three regimes have shown a substantial degree of continuity
rather than change. Of course, the 1975 land reform was a break through as it
has brought about changes in the land tenure system. Complex tenure patterns of the pre-1975
period (private, rist, church, government) have been abolished by the 1975 land
reform that assigned land ownership rights to the state and allowed use rights
by other actors. Landlordism with all
its exploitative production relations was abolished. Land was distributed to peasants doing away
with land concentration and providing access to those landless. Other problems
such as inadequate access, tenure insecurity, diminution and fragmentation of
holdings, lack of proper institutional framework are, for instance, among those
frequently cited problems in the literature under those three different
regimes. Moreover, those differences in social and political aspects of the
land tenure systems are exhibited between the pre-1975 and post-1975 periods
rather than among the different political regimes. The current land tenure
policy and practices are continuations of those found under the Derg regime and
changes introduced since 1989. But many
queries can be raised about some of the generalizations found in the
literature.
Although largely mitigated by the 1975 reform, access
problems were not settled in the long run.
It has been mentioned that there are many landless peasants currently. It is noted that in some communities such
landless people reach up to some 50% of the total households in the area. Rural
women and young people are also indicated disadvantaged groups in terms of
access to land. Some ethnic and religious minorities are also mentioned as
having problems in access to land. In
addition, there are many in a situation of having very minuscule holdings
(near-landlessness).
However, the causes are not land concentration in the
hands of landlords. Increasing population
pressure on those already densely populated areas is commonly mentioned as the
cause of the problem. However, it is
also felt that in those areas where there were not many land redistributions,
there is a kind of skewed landholding pattern that might have contributed to
the problem of landlessness. At times it is also argued that the tenure rule
that restricts access to land to continuous residence in a given kebele
discouraged peasants going out of the rural areas and contributed to population
pressure. Studies also show that since
1975 mechanisms of access to land, except through government allocation, have
been largely constrained by those restrictive policies on transfer.
Many questions can be raised regarding the above
generalizations. For instance, landlessness is not clearly understood
though it is noted as an increasing phenomenon.
Who are said to be landless? Those people who are not officially
assigned land by the government? Those who are not taxpayers because they work
the land registered under the name of other members of the household? Or who
else? What is the extent of landlessness? What are its causes? Is it a result
of unchecked population increase or problems in the land tenure system? What are the views and opinions of the peasants,
politicians, experts, and others about landlessness, its causes and ways of
tackling it? Do peasants have better
options than staying on the land? In relation to restrictions on land transfer
some case studies show that the informal/traditional mechanisms of access, and
land markets have been in practice regardless of those legal sanctions.
Sharecropping has been the most common practice while rental arrangements are
also mentioned. Though these markets include transfer through sales and other
“illegal” mechanisms, there have been not enough studies on the nature and
degree of such informal land markets. Conditions of tenancy, mentioned as
serious problems in the pre-1975 period, are also not studied after the reform.
However, problems of insecure and informal arrangements and high rents seem,
for instance, to continue up to the present time.
Though rist and landlordism were abolished by the 1975
land reform, insecurity continued to be cited as the most serious problems of
the rural land tenure. The most
important cause mentioned is frequent land redistributions carried out for the
case of balancing holdings within peasant associations. There are also some problems mentioned in
relation to arbitrary and high-handed land administration practices by local
officials resulting in tenure insecurity. Eviction of peasants by governments
has continued in the name of establishment of production cooperatives,
villagization, conservation, and other projects. While state farms were one source of peasant
eviction during the Derg, there are hints that commercial farms are becoming
sources of such problems after 1991. This may not be necessarily related to the
policy but the way the policy is implemented.
According to Place et al.
(1993:19-20) land tenure security can be defined to exist “when
an individual perceives that he or she has rights to a piece of land on a
continuous basis, free from imposition or interference from outside sources, as
well as ability to reap benefits of labor and capital invested in the land,
either in use or upon transfer of another holder”. It is assumed that breadth
or robustness of those rights (such as rights of use, transfer and exclusion),
duration of such rights, and assurance of such rights are important components
of land security. Based on such
concepts, a consensus could be
easily reached that there is tenure insecurity in the existing tenure system. Generally it is also argued that the
relationship existing between land tenure systems and agricultural production
and sustainable land use is that secure rights provide an incentive to invest
on land which contributes both to the increase in production and to sustainable
use of the land. Secure individual
rights increase the value of land for the possessors and enable them to have
access to credit and other inputs. At
large, secure individual rights on land can also facilitate transfer of assets,
which will result in allocative efficiency of resources (Feder and Feeney 1993,
Downs and Reyna 1988).
However, there are serious methodological problems in
examining situations of tenure insecurity in general and its impacts in
particular. Tenure security and its effects have not been studied
systematically. While the cause and extent of insecurity is not well established,
it is also important that tenure security is not sufficient condition for
investing in land. It is highly
improbable, for instance, that short-term productivity enhancing investments,
like application of fertilizer, are affected by lack of tenure security and
empirical studies show that there are even long term investments like terracing
done by peasants in different parts of the country (see Yigremew 2000c).
Studies on experiences of many African countries also show (Reij et al. 1996)
that tenure security is a necessary but not sufficient condition for successful
soil and water conservation systems. Returns to investments in conservation,
population pressure and land scarcity, which lead to intensification, markets
and infrastructure, and access to information and technology were also found
relevant. Therefore it is important to
ask questions like what kind of investments and land management practices are
affected by lack of tenure security? And to what extent?
5.3. Diminution and fragmentation of holdings
After the land reform and presently as well,
persistent redistributions are cited as the major cause of diminution and
fragmentation. The egalitarian principle
of granting “equal” access to all those rural dwellers is said to result in ever
diminution of holdings. Both equity
considerations of allocating land of different quality to peasants, and
peasants’ rational actions of having lands of different soils and different
agro-ecologies are mentioned as causing fragmentation.
Regarding diminution of holdings, observation of
holding patterns at the national level does not show substantial differences in
the case of size. The general trend
exhibited from the statistics is that there is more a levelling down process in
that larger holdings are disappearing while smaller holdings are becoming more
prevalent. The impacts of this phenomenon are among others noted as challenging
production of enough food for family and surplus, resource degradation, and
vulnerability. The average national farm
holdings are estimated less than one hectare while the minimum size even for
subsistence is suggested well above that.
Given the level of productivity, the case of diminution of holdings
could be understood as a serious problem.
However, it has to be qualified as it is not all the same for different
cropping patterns (double, single, etc) and type of crops (root, cash, etc.) as
well as for type of farming system (such as irrigation or rain-fed). In
addition, there seems to be not enough knowledge in the causes and impacts of
diminution of holdings.
Redistribution seems exaggerated as causing diminution and
fragmentation. Micro-level studies show
that transfer mechanisms other than official land allocation are important in
transferring land particularly within families (Yigremew 2000a). In a case
study in Gojjam where there was frequent land redistribution it was found that
out of the sample young household heads, 78.6% have indicated that at the time
of establishing their households they got land only from their families. In another case study in Ankober,
Fragmentation is also
cited in the literature as a serious problem constraining agriculture in all
reviewed periods. Before 1975 it has
been noted as more serious in the north. There are no national studies after
the 1975 reform but around that time studies show some 23% of holdings with
five and above number of plots in a province with the highest scale of
fragmentation. However, the national
average number of parcels (MoA 1975) was reported to be 2.46. The stated arguments towards the negative
impacts of fragmentation include that it has incurred high costs in terms of
travelling time, acted as hindrance for taking advantage of economies of scale
of some technologies, and it made difficult taking closer care of farms. Some specific case studies after the land
reform show an increasing trend of fragmentation although the figures were not
significantly high (on the average
It is important to note that the major objective of this part (Part II)
of the study is to examine land tenure issues affecting the growth of Ethiopian
agriculture and identifies areas that need further investigation. Although
there were not enough studies, it is somewhat difficult to accept those
generalizations about the seriousness of fragmentation in this country. First of all, no criteria were used as to
what fragmentation really meant in a given context. Secondly, it seems that our cases are much less
by international comparison. For example
in some parts of Spain in the 1970s, the average number of plots was 14.52 with
an average size of 0.34 ha per plot; around 1984 China had about 200 million
small and fragmented farms with a peasant household on the average contracting
0.56 ha of land fragmented into 9.7 plots with an average size of 0.06 ha each
(Dong 1995. Thirdly, the issue of risk
aversion (under which fragmentation should partly be explained), and other
advantages (say, production of different
crops for household subsistence) are not discussed in the Ethiopian context.
Dessalegn (1994:10) stated that Ethiopian peasants prefer dispersed plots for
reasons of minimizing or avoiding risk of crop failure, to be able to exploit
the different micro-ecologies and to grow wider variety of crops, to smoothen
out the flow of food and income during a year, and ease of practicing multiple
cropping on scattered plots. Alemneh (1985) in his study in three Awrajas in
Arssi province found no significant differences between degree of fragmentation
in 1966 and 1984 and only 5% of the respondents indicated fragmentation as
among the most serious problems.
Fourthly, if what is implied in those arguments about fragmentation is
the need for consolidation, it is important to ask what would be the merits of
land consolidation to an Ethiopian highland peasant? Therefore, a more comprehensive theoretical
arguments and empirical studies are needed in this respect.
5.4. Inefficient allocation of land
In the pre-1975 period the problem was there has been
unutilized, or underutilized agricultural land in the country as a result of
land concentration under non-farming elites and absentee landlords. After 1975, restrictions on transfer and
egalitarian land allocation practices were mentioned as sources of
misallocation. Though it was not known to what extent legal restrictions have
affected land transfer mechanisms (like rental, swapping, sharecropping,
mortgaging, sales, etc.) it was claimed that the 1975 land reform has restricted
land transfers. On the other hand, in
the process of egalitarian land redistribution, very poor individuals without
the necessary resources to work the land were given land. This, it is mentioned, coupled with those
restrictions on land transfer, has made some plots to be underutilized or
totally unused. Some also argue that state farms and agricultural production
cooperatives were not efficient enough in using land and other resources. Given the level of investment on such
production systems, their productivity was, in some cases, lower than private
peasant farms. Currently, both
constraints- restrictions on transfer and large-scale farming- are existing and
there are some indications of underutilization of land. There are, for instance, complaints that
those commercial farms are not productive as expected and even some are not
operational.
It is however important to note that those legal
restrictions of governments have not been effective enough in restricting land
transfers. Empirical micro-level studies suggest that many of those land
transfers were “informally” existing and sharecropping is the commonest type
(Abebe 2000, Fafchamps 2000, Yigremew 2000a, 2000c, Yohannes 1994, Gavian and
Amare 1996, Bereket and Croppenstedt 1995). For example, in 7 of their study
sites Bereket and Croppenstedt (1995)
found that 45.8% of the respondents were involved in land transactions. In some of their study sites (like Yetmen in
Gojjam) they found that 41.7% of households were engaged in the transaction of
renting-in land. Yohannes (1994) also
found that in
5.5. Problems in land administration
Land administration, a very
fundamental factor in land tenure discussions, is not directly addressed by
many of those cited studies. However,
though
not explicitly stated in many of those studies, land administration problems
have existed in all those land tenure systems.
Watterland (1970)
pointed out that the general objective of land administration is the
establishment of a system of adequate land utilization which includes provision
of security on land possessions, land protection, development-oriented land use
planning with knowledge of land resources, land classification system, and
appropriate system of land distribution.
What can be observed is that
there were no policies, established systems and practices dealing with proper
allocation and utilization of land resources to the benefit of the country and
the majority of the people. Distribution of land, establishment and
registration of land rights, administration and protection of those rights, establishment
and regulation of land use practices, and other similar activities were not
properly conducted.
First of all, with few
exceptions throughout decades, there were no government institutions
principally dealing with land cases. The
short-lived Ministry of Land Reform and Administration around the last days of
the Imperial regime was an exception.
Other times, land cases were handled by many organizations without
proper delimitation of powers and duties.
For instance, during the Derg Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of
Interior, political cadres, mass organizations, and local administrative units
were involved in land administration matters. Nowadays as well, there is no
national land use policy yet and no specific government agency dealing with
land issues. Technical issues of land administration are assigned to the
administration and the political structures.
Land distribution issues are decided and carried out mainly by
politicians. Assignment and protection of land rights is left to administrators
and politicians and not to technical personnel and institutions, etc. As a result, land administration has been
done arbitrarily, negatively affecting both the rights of citizens and the use
of resources. Moreover, this problem
seems becoming more serious at present under a regionalized and politicized
framework where there is no federal government agency responsible for it and
line ministries like Ministry of Agriculture are more marginalized regarding
land tenure issues. For instance, regardless of the constitutional provisions
and the federal land administration law, many regions have not yet promulgated
land administration laws. But
there have not been systematic and rigorous studies on the impact of such
administrative malaise on land access, utilization and management (litigations,
ambiguities, overrides of rights, etc.).
Such studies may contribute to the understanding of the regional
dimensions of the current land administration.
Rural development policies in this country during the
Derg time and now seem to extol the role of land redistribution in bringing
about rural development, social equity and in addressing women’s
gender-specific constraints. However, in reality this was not the case. First of all, women have no land in their
name unless they are heads of households.
Secondly, very often the land that female-headed households get is very
small. Given the low productivity and
the family size of those households, it is difficult to produce adequate food
for survival. Thirdly, given the dynamic and diversified mechanisms of having
access to land, land redistribution done at times could not bring about social
equity in land possession in the long run and could not even guarantee
continuous access to the allotted land and its utilization. This is because
first, land redistribution is only one means of having access to land, and
second and more importantly, it cannot even guarantee the continuous possession
and use of the land allotted. The case study showed that while men augmented
their holdings using a number of supplementary mechanisms, women could not even
control and utilize those plots allocated to them during land
redistribution. Women also have not the
same access to social institutions that would allow them to augment their
landholdings outside of official redistribution.
Rural women’s disadvantage in
5.7. The land debate and international experience
The above discussions on the land issues under the
current regime show that there is more continuity than change in the areas of
rural land policy and administration. As
those micro-level studies and arguments show, those major land tenure and
administration problems that existed during
the Derg are still prevailing. As
a result land issues remained a focus of debate and differences among those
concerned about the country’s development.
This is ironical in that major principles of land issues were said to be
“resolved” by the 1995 constitution and that state ownership was maintained
regardless of the free-market economy policy of the regime. It is also interesting to observe that the
government on the one hand appreciates, in many of its development policies,
those serious tenure-related problems under its predecessors (such as
diminution of holdings, tenure insecurity and its result of disincentives to
production and land management, and mal-administration of land) and on the
other, repeats those things that made those problems to perpetuate. Arbitrary and political land redistribution
resulting in serious negative repercussions in tenure security and land
management is the most compelling event that has exacerbated preoccupations
about the future of land tenure in this country. Except those already mentioned standard
arguments made by the government, there are no explicitly stated or thoroughly
investigated causes for such government behavior on land issues.
It was also Dessalegn’s (1994: ix)
apprehension before land issues were enshrined in the 1995 constitution that
there were indications “ that land policy may be sacrificed for political and
doctrinal purposes”. The political
primacy in land administration has been demonstrated by the 1996 land
redistribution of the Amhara Region where access to land was based primarily on
political criteria, that is participation in the Derg local administrative
structures. Neither social equity nor economic considerations were given enough
attention in such politically motivated redistribution.
It seems that it is as a result of such
problems in the land tenure system that land policy issues remained the focus
of debate and a source of differences.
This “debate” is however devoid of participation of peasants and
pastoralists, civil societies and other concerned parties (and in this respect,
it is different from what happens in many African countries, such as
As pointed out in the discussions, there are issues
not well addressed by the “debate” on the land issue. These include a total
absence of the opinions and interests of the peasants and nomadic pastoralists,
whether a given form of ownership serves as a guarantee of secure tenure, the
wisdom of restricting alternative tenure possibilities to single choice, the
implications to peasant livelihoods, rationales for state ownership,
implications on food production and long-term growth as well as stability, and
the behaviour of the market. Equity, security and transferability should
be the focus of such discussions on land tenure. Currently, for instance, there
is no conclusive evidence that shows a direct relationship between the type of
land ownership in a given tenure and the economic and social merits it
has. Following are two examples that do
not fit to the standard arguments in relation to type of land ownership and its
impacts on equity and development.
A bird's eye view of literature indicates that there
are no conclusive evidences showing the relationship between land ownership and
those positive social and economic attributes of tenure. For example, a World Bank study on the market
versus administrative reallocation of agricultural land noted that considerable
controversy surrounds the relative merits of market-based mechanisms versus
administrative mechanisms of land allocation in responding to social and
economic forces and empirical evidence of how they function is also scarce
(Carter and Yao, 1999). The cases of
However, such a centralized ownership and management
system largely failed. Difficulties in labor monitoring, the state's extractive
policy, and the anti-incentive ideology were among the factors. This situation led to incremental reforms
since the 1960s with the reinstatement of the small private plots and liberalization
of farm management decision making.
Since 1978 moderate progressive elements in the political leadership
started the de-collectivization process giving land use and managerial
rights to households while keeping
ownership within the state through cooperative administration (the household
responsibility system/HRS). In the new system, agricultural land was
distributed more or less evenly among peasant households on the basis of family
size and sometimes in proportion to labor available as well; decisions
regarding use of the land were devolved to the household, land use rights were
given to farm households. In 1988
transfers of land use rights were officially allowed. Land contracts for farmland, which were started
with three years of period, expanded to 15 and in 1994 to 30 years of period. To a large extent, landholding adjustments
were continuously made by cooperatives in response to demographic changes.
A great deal of flexibility and decentralization has
also accompanied such changes since the abolition of communes- land tenure practices
were experimented with a given degree of discretion and differences at the
regional and even village levels. In the
late 1990s, with the development of non-agricultural work opportunities, some
farmers pooled their land and received dividends from their shares; in others
farmers contributed their land to organize production in partnership with
others who contributed other factors of production. Compensations were paid for farmers whenever
their holdings were taken away (including by the government) for adjustment or
other purposes.
These changes (combined with other favorable
conditions) have resulted in an extraordinary increase in productivity and
farmers' income, as well as the development of the economy as a whole. Within
the period 1980-1990 the country's gross agricultural output value increased by
86 %; the rural total production rose by 163 % from 1980 to 1989; the average
per capita income of peasants jumped 64 % from 1980 to 1985; etc. These results were achieved with an average
household farmland size of 0.6 hectares. Half of such development is attributed
to the change in the land tenure and agricultural organization through the
household responsibility system, which was an incentive to farmers (Prosterman
1994, Lin 1998, Johnson 1998, Dong 1995).
According to a World Bank study (Migot-Adholla et al. 1994:120) there
were not enough empirical attempts to establish the relationship among land
tenure, agricultural investment, and farm productivity in
The above cases show that land ownership, by itself, is not a
determining factor for an effective land tenure system that fosters equity and
development. Moreover, privatization in an African context may not bring about
those theoretical attributes of greater security, incentives, and efficiency. To the contrary, it can bring about social
injustice and poverty (see Plateau 1992).
One of the economic arguments against private land ownership is that, if
it leads to land concentration and large-scale farming, the relative efficiency
of farm production will decrease as a result of the so-called inverse
relationship between farm size and productivity (Quan, 2000). Moreover, empirical studies show that at
least in
The above discussions show that despite the
1975 radical land reform, many features of the land tenure have persisted since
decades. Inadequate access, tenure insecurity, diminution and fragmentation of
holdings, inefficient allocation of land, and inappropriateness or lack of land
administration policies and institutions are among those frequently cited
problems in the literature. However, many of those generalizations in the
literature could be questioned given lack of adequate methodologies (such as
lack of consideration of the views and opinions of the peasants and
pastoralists), lack of adequate and contemporary theoretical arguments, and
lack of comprehensive empirical studies done on such problems. The meanings,
extent and causes of landlessness; the nature, extent and impacts of tenure
insecurity; the degree, causes, and impacts of diminution and fragmentation of
holdings; the impact of those policy constraints on actual land transfer and
allocation; the legal and institutional problems in land administration and
their impact; the underlying causes of women’s disadvantage in terms of land
rights; and the nature, contents and problems of the current debate on land
tenure are among those areas where there are no adequate and conclusive
findings and where there is a critical need to do research.
Based on the above discussions and analyses, it is imperative that the
following issues should be investigated thoroughly for both better
understanding of the existing situations and searching for policy alternatives
if necessary.
1.
What
does landlessness mean in the Ethiopian context? What is the degree of
landlessness and who are more affected? What are its underlying causes? How could it be mitigated?
2.
What is
the pattern of landholding distribution?
Is it skewed? If so, what are the causes? How could it be addressed?
3.
What is
tenure insecurity? What is its
extent? What are its underlying causes?
What are its impacts? How can it be
mitigated?
4.
How
small are the average holdings of peasants and by what standard? What are the underlying causes if they are so
small? How could this problem be
addressed?
5.
What is
land fragmentation and what are the criteria used to define it? Is land fragmentation a problem in
6.
To what
extent are land resources utilized efficiently? What are the available
mechanisms (formal and informal) of access to land and what are the problems in
relation to land transfer? Is there
allocative efficiency? What are its
causes? What could be done to mitigate
this problem if need be?
7.
What is
the situation of women in terms of land rights?
If they are disadvantaged, why?
What could be done to redress such disadvantages?
8.
What is
the situation of land use and administration?
Are there policies on land use and administration at the federal and
regional levels of government? If there are, are they appropriate? If not, how are land use and administration
practiced and regulated? What has been
the impacts of such gaps? What could be
done to tackle the problem?
9.
What are
the nature, content and flaws of the current debate on land tenure? What could be done to make it contribute more
to better understand the situation and look for alternative solutions?
10. What are the views and opinions of peasants,
pastoralists, experts, academics, politicians and other sections of the society
on the existing land tenure in
11. If need be, what
feasible alternative policy options are available for consideration to the
existing land tenure system?
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Yohannes Habtu, 1994, Land Access and Rural Labor Market
Constraints: A Case Study of
Zenebework Tadesse, 1982, The
impact of Land Reform on Women: The Case of Ethiopia. In Beneria,
Zenebework Tadesse and Yared
Amare, 2000, Women’s Land Rights in
[1]
Sources like Dessalegn 1984, Cohen and Weintraub 1975, Gilkes 1975 are very
important in understanding the pre-1975 land tenure in
* * This section heavily draws on a recent work that has examined situations of rural female-headed households in terms of access, utilization and control of land and other resources (Yigremew 2001).