Mohammed, Yasin (2004) Pastoral Land Tenure Issues and Development in the Middle Awash Valley: Case Study on Amibara and Gewane Woredas. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.
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Abstract
The study focuses on the pastoralist Afar in the Amibara and Gewane districts, in the Middle Awash Valley, northeastern Ethiopia. The Afar survives for centuries through practicing their traditional production system and way of life that is friendly to the Socio-economic and ecology of the area they inhabit. However, since the Imperial regime, the Middle Awash Valley were incorporated in large scale commercial and state farms which refused to recognize the land rights of the Afar and have had severe impact on the Afar and their land. After the EPRDF government took power in 1991, some change has taken place in Awash. As per the strong quest of the Afar for the return of their land, the transitional government of Ethiopia has returned about 7000 hectares of irrigated and mechanized lands in the Middle Awash to the traditional owners i.e., the Afar. However due to lack of attitudinal change among the Afar pastoralists toward farming practice in general and crop production in particular, shortage of skilled manpower, inadequate financial capital and weak technical support from the federal government, both the Afar and the regional government could not maintain the farms. Consequently, the ANRS re-allocated the land among different clans in the Afar. And hence, each clan lease-out its territory to private cultivators through net profit sharecropping as well as fixed-rental price. This study is stimulated by the current controversy that whether or not the Afars become beneficiary from the private agricultural investment undertaken on their land. The findings of this study indicates that the private agricultural investment in the Middle Awash do not bring any socio-economic benefit to the Afar rather it make the Afarland to be exploited for "free". The Afars' share from the income and employment opportunities generated from operation of the private cultivators is insignificant. Besides the regional government could not generate revenue from tax, as it should have been collected. The Afarland becomes degraded due to high toxic chemicals used by private cultivators as well as their refusal to practice fallowing and crop rotation to conserve theproductivity of the land for some years. As a consequence, the Afars become dependent with others and this time some clan leaders and influential elders are intensively competing to expand their clan land territory inorder to lease-out more land to private cultivators and receive façade benefit at the expense of the majority of Afar pastoralists and their land. The study recommends that regional government should design compatible land use policy with the objectives of attracting private agricultural investment on the Afar land as well as realizing the transformation of the Afar pastoralists into agro-pastoralists.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Pastoral Land Tenure: Private Agricultural Investment: Development: Afar:Amibara: Gewane |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Geoffrey Obatsa |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jun 2019 11:28 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2019 11:28 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/9242 |
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