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Ethiopia: an approach to land reform1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Ann K. S. Lambton
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Extract

The Persian land reform, both in its successes and failures, has lessons for other developing countries, not least Ethiopia. There are many similarities between the two countries. But there are also differences. Both are monarchies, and in both the head of state plays a key role in the government of the country. The Ethiopians and the Persians are both an ancient and proud people. Ethiopia and Iran are both enormous countries with a low population density. Both are characterized by immense variety, climatically, physically, in the different peoples which inhabit the country, and in their social structure. Both have frontier provinces with a population the same on both sides of the border. In both control by the central government of the outlying areas is fairly recent. Their land tenure systems have some resemblances, but that of Ethiopia is much more complex. Farming in both until recent times was mainly subsistence farming. Both have, on the whole, a robust and hard-working peasantry. Both have a large semi-nomadic population as well as a settled population. In both the vast majority of the population derive their livelihood from the land. Both have problems of soil erosion. Drought is common to both. But Ethiopia is much more favourably situated than Iran in these two respects: it has a much higher rainfall over most of the country and, on the whole, better soil conditions. But here perhaps the similarities end.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 221 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1971

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References

2 The Italians claimed to have discovered copper, lead, magnesium, and iron. Some gold is mined in Sidamo (see Perham, Dame Margery, The government of Ethiopia, second ed., London, 1969, 188)Google Scholar.

3 See also Lipsky, G. A., Ethiopia, its people, its society, its culture, New Haven, 1962, 247–51Google Scholar.

4 cf. Lipsky, , op. cit., 245Google Scholar. See also Luther, E. W., Ethiopia today, Stanford, Calif., 1958, 71 ff.Google Scholar; and Perham, , op. cit., 176–7Google Scholar.

5 See Perham, , op. cit., 280–2Google Scholar, for a discussion of the theory that the emperor owned all the land in the country.

6 op. cit., 76.

7 Perham, , op. cit., 284Google Scholar.

8 Perham, , op. cit., 296Google Scholar.

9 Lipsky, , op. cit., 244Google Scholar.

10 See further Mann, H. S., Land tenure in Chore (Shoa) (Monographs in Ethiopian Land Tenure, No. 2), Addis Ababa, Institute of Ethiopian Studies and OUP, 1965Google Scholar.

11 Individual ownership, ownership by the family (enda), and village ownership are all found in Eritrea. See further British Military Administration inEritrea, , Land tenure on the Eritrean plateau, Asmara, 1944Google Scholar.

12 sämonänna märet.

13 See further H. S. Mann, Land tenure in Chore (Shoa).

14 Wolde-Tsadik, Sileshi, Land ownership in Hararge Province (Experiment Station Bulletin No. 47), Imperial Ethiopian College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, Haile Selassie I University, 1966Google Scholar.

15 Wolde-Tsadik, Sileshi, Land taxation in Hararge Province (Experiment Station Bulletin No. 48), Imperial Ethiopian College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, Haile Selassie I University, 1966Google Scholar.

16 Michael, Demissie Gebre, Land tenure in Bate (Experiment Station Bulletin No. 49), Imperial Ethiopian College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, Haile Selassie I University, 1966Google Scholar.

17 sisso was land granted in Shoa after 1903 from which the holder had the right to choose one-third (see Pankhurst, R., Economic history of Ethiopia, 1800–1935, Addis Ababa, 1968, 151)Google Scholar.

18 cf. Clayton, Eric, Agrarian development in peasant economies, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1964Google Scholar.

19 Claims for compensation with regard to the land forming this concession from those who had formerly worked the land as shifting cultivators or occupied it as hunters were pending. They had paid land-tax or hunting tax and claimed this established their right to the land.

20 An all-weather road from Gondar to Metemma was under construction.

21 It appears that urban land in Setit Humera is not owned on a communal tenure. Some dissatisfaction prevailed because it had not been registered by the government. The settlers said that if it was registered they would be able to use the land on which they had built houses as collateral security.

22 cf. Perham, , op. cit., 311Google Scholar.