Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia

Abstract

In content and implementation, Ethiopia’s agrarian reform can be considered as a thorough and radical one. It accomplished its purpose, namely the elimination o f landlordism, quite speedily— a remarkable achievement considering that at the time the reform was promulgated the new' government had not yet firmly established its presence in the countryside. The reform is undoubtedly the most important and the most far-reaching social measure o f the Provisional Military Government o f Ethiopia, and its impact on the fabric o f rural society is far more profound than any of the reforms carricd out since the overthrow' o f absolute monarchy. In brief, it provides for the distribution o f land to peasant households, and abolishes peasant dependence on the landlord, along with the landlord himself. All rural land is under ‘public ownership’ , and tenancy and the hiring of labour have been done away with. Since 1979, the government has called on peasants to engage in collective forms o f production, but it will be a while before this policy will bear fruit, and in the meantime, independent peasant production will constitute the backbone o f the country’s rural economy. We shall not attempt in the essay to present a comprehensive analysis of Ethiopia’s agrarian reform, but rather will consider briefly the process of land distribution and the land system that has evolved as a result. The sections that follow will consist of: (a) A brief look at the agrarian structure under the old regime. We shall argue that the standard approach to the analysis o f the old agrarian system is inadequate and needs to be reconsidered. (b) A summary o f the content o f the reform legislation (c) A discussion of the process o f land distribution and its outcome, and the evolution o f Peasant Associations. (d) Some issues on agrarian reform based on the Marxist classics. The Ethiopian rural setting contains a wide variety o f ecological zones or agro-ecological regions, o f agricultural systems and practices as well as sociocultural experiences.Obviously the impact o f the land reform has not been uniform throughout, and in each region significant variations in substance as well as in detail have emerged. The material for this study was collected in four select woredas or sub-districts located in three o f the major agricultural zones o f the country.* Apart from their location, the areas selected for the study reveal significant differences in terms o f agricultural practices, demographic characteristics and cultural experiences. In addition, each of the woredas forms a part of a more or less distinct socio-cultural region, and each region has had a separate local history and rural economy prior to the overthrow of the ancient regime. The system of land holdings and the politico-administrative status o f each of the regions were dis-similar enough in the past to give each area a distinctive local identity. The tables and figures shown in the text reveal, o f course, conditions in the localities where the data was collected; however, we believe that insofar as the agrarian processes and socioeconomic forces set in motion by the reform are concerned, our findings are o f wider scope and relevance. The areas o f our study are the following: 1. Bollosa woreda, YVollaita awraja, Sidamo province in Southern Ethiopia. 2. Manna woreda, Jim m a awraja, KafTa province, in South-Western Ethiopia. 3. Yilmana Densa woreda (hereafter cited as Adet woreda), Bahr Dar awraja, Gojjam province in Northern Ethiopia. 4. Sibu Sire woreda (herafter Sire), Nekempte awraja, Wollega province, Central-Western Ethiopia. Our findings are for the most part based on data gathered by means of questionnaires, personal observation, and information obtained through interviews and discussions with peasants and peasant leaders, rural development agents, and administrative officials in each o f the woredas. In addition, we have also made use o f records from woreda archives and documents available at local offices o f Peasant Associations and rural development agencies, as well as published official and semi-official sources. A comprehensive evaluation o f the impact and consequences of the land reform on rural Ethiopia as a whole has yet to be made and in the meantime we hope this short study will serve to fill a gap.