The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia: Indigenous Knowledge as a Missing Link Explaining the Shortcomings of the Land Reform in 1975

Tenkir Bonger, Mulungushi University, Kabwe, Zambia

Abstract

In 1975, Ethiopia enacted one of the most radical agrarian reforms in modern times, which formed the centre piece of its 1974 Revolution. In the search to compress the agrarian structure of Ethiopia into the social trajectory of European societies, in its preamble, the reform characterized Ethiopia’s social formation as part feudal and part capitalist. Informed by the fuedo-bourgeoisie paradigm, in order to implicitly contain ‘relation of exploitation’, it exempted tenants from the payment of land rent and with it abolished 'land-lordism.’ For similar reason, it prohibited the hiring in and the hiring out of labour. It also set a maximum of 10 hectares of land per peasant household which could be operated without hiring labour and attendant exploitation. While most large farms were converted into state farms, those more than 10 hectares in peasant areas were apportioned to the nearby households. Given the above, the paper examines the implications of the reform for rural migration, the related problem of famine, redistribution of rural incomes, the welfare of the rural and the urban poor and accumulation of which had adverse consequences. Partly as a result of this policy, the period under the reform [1975-91] had the lowest growth rate of agricultural output. It is contended that most of the non-anticipated negative outcomes emanated from the adoption of Euro-centric agrarian structure model not sufficiently interfaced with the specificity of rural Ethiopia. Finally, the paper brings to the fore the gist of an indigenous knowledge source on the political economy of Ethiopia which may have provided better policy reform base for the Agrarian Reform.

 

The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia: Indigenous Knowledge as a Missing Link Explaining the Shortcomings of the Land Reform in 1975

In 1975, Ethiopia enacted one of the most radical agrarian reforms in modern times, which formed the centre piece of its 1974 Revolution. In the search to compress the agrarian structure of Ethiopia into the social trajectory of European societies, in its preamble, the reform characterized Ethiopia’s social formation as part feudal and part capitalist. Informed by the fuedo-bourgeoisie paradigm, in order to implicitly contain ‘relation of exploitation’, it exempted tenants from the payment of land rent and with it abolished 'land-lordism.’ For similar reason, it prohibited the hiring in and the hiring out of labour. It also set a maximum of 10 hectares of land per peasant household which could be operated without hiring labour and attendant exploitation. While most large farms were converted into state farms, those more than 10 hectares in peasant areas were apportioned to the nearby households. Given the above, the paper examines the implications of the reform for rural migration, the related problem of famine, redistribution of rural incomes, the welfare of the rural and the urban poor and accumulation of which had adverse consequences. Partly as a result of this policy, the period under the reform [1975-91] had the lowest growth rate of agricultural output. It is contended that most of the non-anticipated negative outcomes emanated from the adoption of Euro-centric agrarian structure model not sufficiently interfaced with the specificity of rural Ethiopia. Finally, the paper brings to the fore the gist of an indigenous knowledge source on the political economy of Ethiopia which may have provided better policy reform base for the Agrarian Reform.