For thousands of years, Ethiopia has depended on its smallholding farmers to provide the bulk of its food needs. But now, such farmers find themselves under threat from environmental degradation, climate change and declining productivity. As a result, smallholder agriculture has increasingly become subsistence-oriented, with many of these farmers trapped in a cycle of poverty. Smallholders have long been marginalised by mainstream development policies, and only more recently has their crucial importance been recognised for addressing rural poverty through agricultural reform.
This collection, written by leading Ethiopian scholars, explores the scope and impact of Ethiopia’s policy reforms over the past two decades on the smallholder sector. Focusing on the Lake Tana basin in northwestern Ethiopia, an area with untapped potential for growth, the contributors argue that any effective policy will need to go beyond agriculture to consider the role of health, nutrition and local food customs, as well as including increased safeguards for smallholder’s land rights. They in turn show that smallholders represent a vitally overlooked component of development strategy, not only in Ethiopia but across the global South.
Climate change is causing growing variability and uncertainty in rainfall in Africa. Since the continent's food production systems are dominantly rain-fed, these changes are putting food security at even higher risk. In order to reduce this dependency, institutional reforms in the agricultural water sectors have become a priority in research and policy.
In this report, Atakilte Beyene, senior researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, together with twelve researchers based in Africa, studies current agricultural water reforms in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and other East African countries. The report consists of four case studies and an introductory section. The first case study evaluates the performance of community participation in water resources governance in the Mount Kenya Region. It uncovers the implication of a ban on traditional institutions on water security at a catchment level. The second case analyses the prospects of introducing pro-poor water schemes in conditions where climate change and water inequality are already challenges. It identifies incentive mechanisms that enhance more efficient distribution and utilization of water resources. The third case examines impacts of competitive and intensive farming strategies, especially irrigation schemes, on water demands. The final case study explores how advances in information and communication technologies improve water-use management systems across organizational and geographic scales.
Failures in considering and properly addressing local resistance have become costly for both the local people and the investors. Land acquisition policies need to be accompanied by mechanisms that address local grievances and conflicts. These aspects are crucial not only to alleviate unjust practices, but also to enhance confidence of investors and performance of the investments.
Over the last 15 years, Ethiopia has seen remarkable economic growth. The agricultural sector is part of this growth, but its proportional contribution to the overall economy has gone down. There is an urgent need to transform Ethiopian agriculture, not least when it comes to the inefficient land laws that impede young people from investing in farmland. This policy note identifies the structural problems that constrain such a transformation and gives recommendations on how they can be addressed.
Widespread poverty as well as food and income insecurity plague Africa’s dominant smallholder agriculture. Paradoxically, the very people who mainly depend on agriculture are not able to secure their own food and nutrition needs. Today, three-quarters of Africa’s malnourished children and the majority of people living in absolute poverty are found among the smallholder farmers who are key to the development of the continent.
Enforce the ‘African solutions to African problems’ principle in the UN and promote cooperation with the African Union and its regional communities. That is what Ethiopia should work for during its two-year term in the Security Council. To perform on this global stage, the Ethiopian government has to address its domestic democracy and governance issues.
African smallholder family farming, the backbone of the continental economy throughout the colonial and early post-colonial period, has been destabilized and eroded over the past thirty years. Despite the World Bank’s poverty alleviation concerns, agrarian livelihoods continue to unravel under the impact of economic liberalization and global value chains. Can African smallholders bounce back and compete? The World Development Report 2008 argues they can and must. How realistic is this given the history of World Bank conditionality in Africa? This essay explores the productivity and welfare concerns of Africa’s smallholder farming population in the shadow of the World Bank.
Energy crisis and climate change have generated global demands for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. This has led to a rapid increase of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. Most African governments see biofuels as a potential for increasing agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthening their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions.
There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using in-depth African case studies this book addresses this knowledge gap by examining the impacts of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture in regard to vital land outsourcing and food security issues. The surge for African biofuels has also opened space for private investors both domestic and external to multiply and network 'independently' of the state. The biofuel expansion thus generates new economic alliances and production relations, resulting in new forms of inclusions and exclusions within the rural population.
An essential book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels and land outsourcing on Africa.
Dams, irrigation systems and hydropolitics are back on the geopolitical agenda. In recent years, we have seen an accelerating interest in large-scale water infrastructures, such as multipurpose dams and irrigation schemes, in the Nile Region and adjacent catchment areas. Governments in these regions are struggling to increase food security and to provide more energy in the face of industrialisation, climate change and rapid urban growth. The tension between countries over access to water will probably rise, as spells of drought increase in length and intensity.
This small anthology presents seven chapters on dam building processes and projects from Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. It aims to deepen the understanding of the role of dams in development strategies in Africa and it problematizes why some dams are implemented while others are not, and the decision-making processes behind building either irrigation, hydropower or multi-purpose dams. Written in a short and consistent genre, it targets academics and policy makers interested in dam discourses and water infrastructure development.