Ethiopia - Land Reform

Until the l974 revolution, Ethiopia had a complex land tenure system. In Welo Province, for example,
there were an estimated 111 types of land tenure. The existence of so many land tenure systems,
coupled with the lack of reliable data, has made it difficult to give a comprehensive assessment of
landownership in Ethiopia. However, the tenure system can be understood in a rudimentary way if
one examines it in the context of the basic distinction between landownership patterns in the north
and those in the south.
Historically, Ethiopia was divided into the northern highlands, which constituted the core of the old
Christian kingdom, and the southern highlands, most of which were brought under imperial rule by
conquest. This north-south distinction was reflected in land tenure differences. In the northern
provinces--particularly Gojam, Begemdir and Simen (called Gonder after 1974), Tigray, highland
Eritrea, parts of Welo, and northern Shewa--the major form of ownership was a type of communal
system known as rist. According to this system, all descendants (both male and female) of an
individual founder were entitled to a share, and individuals had the right to use (a usufruct right) a
plot of family land. Rist was hereditary, inalienable, and inviolable. No user of any piece of land could
sell his or her share outside the family or mortgage or bequeath his or her share as a gift, as the land
belonged not to the individual but to the descent group. Most peasants in the northern highlands
held at least some rist land, but there were some members belonging to minority ethnic groups who
were tenant farmers.
The other major form of tenure was gult , an ownership right acquired from the monarch or from
provincial rulers who were empowered to make land grants. Gult owners collected tribute from the
peasantry and, until l966 (when gult rights were abolished in principle), exacted labor service as
payment in kind from the peasants. Until the government instituted salaries in the twentieth century,
gult rights were the typical form of compensation for an official.
Other forms of tenure included samon, mengist, and maderia land. Samon was land the government
had granted to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in perpetuity. Traditionally, the church had claimed
about one-third of Ethiopia's land; however, actual ownership probably never reached this figure.
Estimates of church holdings range from l0 to 20 percent of the country's cultivated land. Peasants
who worked on church land paid tribute to the church (or monastery) rather than to the emperor. The
church lost all its land after the 1974 revolution. The state owned large tracts of agricultural land
known as mengist and maderia. Mengist was land registered as government property, and maderia
was land granted mainly to government officials, war veterans, and other patriots in lieu of a pension
or salary. Although it granted maderia land for life, the state possessed a reversionary right over all
land grants. Government land comprised about 12 percent of the country's agricultural land.
In general, absentee landlordism in the north was rare, and landless tenants were few. For instance,
tenancy in Begemdir and Simen and in Gojam was estimated at about 2 percent of holdings. In the
southern provinces, however, few farmers owned the land on which they worked. Southern
landownership patterns developed as a result of land measurement and land grants following the
Ethiopian conquest of the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After conquest,
officials divided southern land equally among the state, the church, and the indigenous population.
Warlords who administered the occupied regions received the state's share. They, in turn,
redistributed part of their share to their officers and soldiers. The government distributed the
church's share among the church hierarchy in the same manner. Officials divided the rest between
the traditional leaders ( balabats ) and the indigenous people. Thus, the loss of two-thirds of the land
to the new landlords and the church made many local people tenants (gebbars). Tenancy in the
southern provinces ranged between 65 and 80 percent of the holdings, and tenant payments to
landowners averaged as high as 50 percent of the produce.
In the lowland periphery and the Great Rift Valley, the traditional practice of transhumance and the
allocation of pastoral land according to tribal custom remained undisturbed until after World War II.
These two areas are inhabited by pastoralists, including the Afar and Isa in eastern Eritrea, Welo, and
Harerge; the Somali in the Ogaden; the Borana in Sidamo and Bale; and the Kereyu in the Great Rift
Valley area of Shewa. The pastoral social structure is based on a kinship system with strong
interclan connections; grazing and water rights are regulated by custom. Until the l950s, this
pastoral life remained largely undisturbed by the highlanders, who intensely disliked the hot and
humid lowland climate and feared malaria. Beginning in the l950s, however, the malaria eradication
programs made irrigation agriculture in these areas possible. The government's desire to promote
such agriculture, combined with its policy of creating new tax revenues, created pressure on many
pastoralists, especially the Afar and the Arsi (a division of the Oromo). Major concessionaires, such
as the Tendaho Cotton Plantation (managed until the 1974 revolution by the British firm Mitchell
Cotts) and the Wonji Sugar Plantation (managed by HVA, a Dutch company), acquired large tracts of
traditional Afar and Arsi grazing land and converted it into large-scale commercial farms. The loss of
grazing land to these concessions significantly affected traditional migration patterns for grazing
and water.
In the northern and southern parts of Ethiopia, peasant farmers lacked the means to improve
production because of the fragmentation of holdings, a lack of credit, and the absence of modern
facilities. Particularly in the south, the insecurity of tenure and high rents killed the peasants'
incentive to improve production.
By the mid-l960s, many sectors of Ethiopian society favored land reform. University students led the
land reform movement and campaigned against the government's reluctance to introduce land
reform programs and the lack of commitment to integrated rural development. By l974 it was clear
that the archaic land tenure system was one of the major factors responsible for the backward
condition of Ethiopia's agriculture and the onset of the revolution. On March 4, l975, the Derg
announced its land reform program. The government nationalized rural land without compensation,
abolished tenancy, forbade the hiring of wage labor on private farms, ordered all commercial farms
to remain under state control, and granted each peasant family so-called "possessing rights" to a
plot of land not to exceed ten hectares.
Tenant farmers in southern Ethiopia, where the average tenancy was as high as 55 percent and rural
elites exploited farmers, welcomed the land reform. But in the northern highlands, where communal
ownership (rist) dominated and large holdings and tenancy were exceptions, many people resisted
land reform. Despite the special provision for communal areas (Article l9 of the proclamation gave
peasants in the communal areas "possessing rights" to the land they were tilling at the time of the
proclamation) and the PMAC's efforts to reassure farmers that land reform would not affect them
negatively, northerners remained suspicious of the new government's intentions. The reform held no
promise of gain for most northerners; rather, many northern farmers perceived land reform as an
attack on their rights to rist land. Resistance intensified when zemecha  members campaigned for
collectivization of land and oxen.
Land reform had the least impact on the lowland peripheries, where nomads traditionally maintained
their claims over grazing lands. The new proclamation gave them rights of possession to land they
used for grazing. Therefore, the nomads did not perceive the new program as a threat. However, in
the Afar area of the lower Awash Valley, where large-scale commercial estates had thrived, there
was opposition to land reform, led mainly by tribal leaders (and large landowners), such as Ali Mirah,
the sultan of Aussa.
The land reform destroyed the feudal order; changed landowning patterns, particularly in the south,
in favor of peasants and small landowners; and provided the opportunity for peasants to participate
in local matters by permitting them to form associations. However, problems associated with
declining agricultural productivity and poor farming techniques still were prevalent.
Government attempts to implement land reform also created problems related to land
fragmentation, insecurity of tenure, and shortages of farm inputs and tools. Peasant associations
often were periodically compelled to redistribute land to accommodate young families or new
households moving into their area. The process meant not only smaller farms but also the
fragmentation of holdings, which were often scattered into small plots to give families land of
comparable quality. Consequently, individual holdings were frequently far smaller than the permitted
maximum allotment of ten hectares. A l979 study showed that around Addis Ababa individual
holdings ranged from l.0 to l.6 hectares and that about 48 percent of the parcels were less than one-
fourth of a hectare in size. Another study, of Dejen awraja (subregion) in Gojam, found that land
fragmentation had been exacerbated since the revolution. For example, during the pre-reform period,
sixty-one out of 200 farmer respondents owned three or four parcels of land; after the reform, the
corresponding number was 135 farmers.
The second problem related to security of tenure, which was threatened by increasing pressure to
redistribute land and to collectivize farms. Many peasants were reluctant to improve their land
because they were afraid that they would not receive adequate compensation for upgrades. The
third problem developed as a result of the military government's failure to provide farmers with basic
items like seeds, oxen, and fertilizer. For instance, one study of four communities in different parts of
Ethiopia found that up to 50 percent of the peasants in some areas lacked oxen and about 40
percent did not have plows.
In Ethiopia, almost 90 percent of the population lives by cultivating the land, and more
than 50 percent of export earnings derive from the sale of farm produce. The
government is seeking to relieve the people from their desperate and deeply entrenched
poverty by way of an agriculture-based industrialisation development plan.
However, the economic think-tank Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA) warns that
without radical land reform, the battle to bring about major development is doomed to
failure.
"The future condition of the rural population of the country does not bear much hope
unless bold measures are urgently taken to change the gloomy path of Ethiopian
farmers," the EEA said in a far-reaching report, published on Tuesday.
LOW FOOD PRODUCTION
Although Ethiopia's territory extends over about a million square kilometres, almost half
the 65-million population does not have enough land for minimum food production.
In harsh climates like Tigray, three out of four farmers do not have enough land to feed
themselves. Plots are tiny, the national average being one hectare, and this undermines
agricultural intensification, according to the EEA.
The report, entitled "Land Reform and Agricultural Development in Ethiopia", said food
output had not been keeping pace with population increases over the last two decades.
"This has a serious and adverse consequence for the survival of the majority of the rural
population, whose livelihood is almost totally dependent on land," the EEA said in the
157-page study, which covered every region in the country except Gambela Regional
State in the west.
The report asserted that efforts to increase productivity had largely failed. Small gains
in some regions had not been replicated across the country. Income and productivity
increases accruing from the widespread use of costly improved seeds and fertiliser
were insignificant, it added, saying plot size was far more important for reaping benefits
than agricultural inputs.
"In the meantime, the number of farmers suffering from food insecurity keeps rising,
increasing the country's dependence on food imports to sustain the livelihood of its
population. Furthermore, the number of people suffering from chronic poverty is also
rising," the EEA said.
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE
Land reform is a highly controversial issue in Ethiopia. Under the current land tenure
system, farmers cultivate government-owned land, nationalised under the former
Marxist Derg government in 1975 to replace replaced the feudal system cited as one of
the main causes for the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie.
After the Derg was overthrown in 1991, plans were put in place for a national
referendum, which was never held. Three years later the transitional government re-
established state ownership of the land.
"In doing so, the government effectively eliminated land policy as a variable instrument
that could address changing circumstances that affect the rural economy," the EEA
said.
It noted that one of the serious implications of state ownership was the insecurity
arising out of the absence of private ownership. Some three-quarters of farmers
interviewed were uncertain as to whether they would still have tenure of their land in five
years' time. Inevitably, said the EEA, this led to an unwillingness to invest.
Among keen proponents of land privatisation is the UN's Economic Commission for
Africa (ECA), whose leading economists argue that land-ownership should form the
cornerstone of any agriculture-based development plan.
"Land tenure and governance are among the most pressing areas requiring institutional
reforms in Ethiopia," it says. "Although the land issue is politically difficult, it needs to be
resolved quickly since it impedes the development of several key sectors. In particular
the success of the government's main development strategy - agriculture-led
industrialisation - may largely depend on addressing rural land-tenure insecurity."
The EEA, however, said there might be another way. In its report, it advocated a mixture
of state, private and communal holdings, as well as "viable farm sizes" so as to
maximise and intensify harvests.
"Given the frightening rate of increase in rural population and the already small size of
holdings, poverty reduction needs an effort beyond reliance on the farming sector," the
EEA said.
"There is a clear need to devise a coherent and urgent strategy that would enable the
rapid growth in non-agricultural economic sectors. Sensitive as land-policy issues are,
the country cannot afford to ignore the problem and hope that the problem will go
away,"