rights of Ethiopian pastoralists?

Today i just fell on this article from the Montreal gazette :

Ethiopia's leasing of arable land adding to crisis: report

I learnt very interesting things, as for example that pastoralists have the right to not be displaced from their own land and must be consulted when land is taken over. By chance, during a workshop last week, I was discussing the land certification process for the Amhara region with one of the experts. Land certification in Ethiopia is a process which regulate a sort of private ownership on land (guaranteed used of the land for a maximum of 99 years) . Amhara region is going pretty well compared to other region, and has certified all its highly productive crop land and is in process of creating a cadaster.

But the expert I talked to, was coming back from the lowlands in the Benishangul region and Amhara (area near to the Sudanese boarder). It seems that it is the only area where the certification process is not finished for the Amhara region. Interesting, as this implies that these people cannot prove ownership on their land, and therefore cannot enforce their rights. It seems that some farmers have a very hard time in getting their land certified, while other farmers signed a paper that they would leave their land, if needed. Also rumors indicate that some of this land is on the list for foreign investors (or "land grabber")...

When Swiss farmers become fishermen

Fishery is often seen as an interesting option for farm diversification, especially in developing countries. Indeed, a pond with fish is new source of healthy protein for the farmer and allows to store water for the dry season.

But now, also Swiss farmers have discovered fishery as an interesting option for income diversification. The recent report in the Swiss news shows that some farmers instead of their pigs, are breeding salmon.

Farmers keep the fish on farms only during growing time, when the salmon needs warm water and sell them to the traditional fish industry for the finishing in cold water. Following the report, this is much more efficient and environmentally friendly than making use of the traditional fishery infrastructure, because farmers can make use of synergies. The energy needed to keep the water warm can be made with biogas (livestock) and the waste can be re-used on farm.

Farmers who become fishermen : a model to follow-up.
Watch the report from the Swiss news here :

Droughts in Ethiopia

Last week, I joined one of our team into the fields in Woreta, near to Tana lake. The surroundings of Tana lake belong to the high potential locations for agriculture. During the current long rainy season (my flight was unable to land in Bahir Dar due to heavy storm) farmers are fighting with excess water. Drainage systems and rice cultivation on non-permeable soils are the answers to these heavy rains. In some places maize was flooded and house almost under water.

Flooding near Woreta

The green watershed about 10 km from Woreta

The rice fields in the Woreta plain

After one week in the field with no access to internet and other news, it is pretty shocking have all my friends worried because they have seen pictures of drought and starvation in news :

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93247

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/hornofafrica/

Interestingly enough, the news was not shared in the few English newspaper of Ethiopia, and as usual some internet pages were blocked. In Addis, it is business as usual, food shortages have not increased.

The big discrepancy between North and South in Ethiopia can be explained by the diversity of Ethiopia in terms of elevation and rainfall. The Ethiopian highland in the North around Tana lake belongs to the humid tropic and is source of the Blue Nile. This area has water excess rather than water shortage these days. The South and lowlands on the contrary experience droughts. The map below (taken from the Ethiopian rural economy atlas from IFPRI) shows annual rainfall and clearly shows much lower rainfall in the South near to the Somali border compared to the Tana lake (blue feature in the North) area.

The return of the sunflower?

On my recent trip to Bako agricultural research center (between Ambo and Nekemte in the West of Ethiopia), I met an Indian farmer who was farming about 2000 ha of land in the area. His company can be seen as one of the "land grabbers" from my previous post.

He has explained to me that two businesses are promising in Ethiopia : sugar and oil (by the way the two goods that where impossible to purchase in Addis for many weeks).

The Indian company has two different plans. The first is to expand the sugar cane production and to build an own processing factory. Secondly, it wants to increase the oil seed production. Currently, mainly sesame and niger (neug) are planted in Ethiopia. Especially, the neug is very labor intensive as it needs to be harvested by hand. It is therefore difficult to increase productivity. Therefore, the Indian farmer would like to grow sunflowers, which harvesting can be mechanized. I liked the idea a lot, and talk to a CGIAR scientist about it. He explained that sunflowers disappeared from the Ethiopian highlands because of a specific root disease. To make sunflowers a success story, it is important to invest into research to find a suitable varieties for that location. Maybe this is the future task of the the agricultural research center that currently focuses more on sorghum and maize.

Land grabbing or not, this company invests both in processing factory within the country as well as agricultural innovation to increase agricultural productivity...

On "Land grabbing in Ethiopia"

Land grabbing has become a important topic in Africa. It seems that big foreign investors from India or Saudi Arabia are can rent land for one dollar a year per hectare in Ethiopia and start commercial farming. Is it good or bad? I guess there is no clear answer to that. A good overview is given by this week's Ethiopian reporter :

http://www.thereporterethiopia.com/Politics-and-Law/are-land-grab-deals-a-path-to-food-security.html

I guess there are two crucial issues that are not mentioned in the article. Firstly, how much of the produced food stays on the local Ethiopian market? Secondly, to what extend are the natural resources over used?

My recent field trip to the Rift Valley gave me the chance to visit some commercial farms (around Mojo). The first farm was an horticulture farm owned by a rich Saudi Arabian and produces mainly salad, cabbage and other vegetables. About 60% of the production goes to the middle east. Viable or not? It depends, if the small holders cultivating the land before was less than the 40% of the food that is kept on Ethiopian market, then yes otherwise no!

The second farm was a rose producing farm delivering the flower auction in the Netherlands. It is owned by 12 Ethiopian investors. This farm makes use of ground water, accessed by a very productive well. Given the current stage of development of the whole basin, it is likely that the water use of the whole

region is below the recharge level. So no threat for the ground water yet. But what will it be when the whole region will be developed? Viable or not? It will strongly depend on the Ethiopian government to truly implement its ground water policy and truly monitor water extraction.

Roses are not food, and therefore do not contribute to food security in a country where 2.8 million people depend on food aid. But it creates employment. Employees from both the horticulture farm and from the rose farm earn 15 birrs a day, that is less than a dollar a day. I bough a pack of strawberry from a strawberry farm in the same area for 20 birrs...

So here again, is foreign investment viable in the area? If the smallholders in the area earn more than a dollar a day, then it is not viable. As the area is pretty fertile with access to ground water, it is likely that smart smallholders earn more... but this year, the onion price collapse... so the smallholders that planted only onions are likely to have very little income...

So before saying if "land grabbing" is good or bad, one needs to look at the specific situation of each area!

PhD entitled modeling patterns of farm diversification defended on Feburary 14th 2011

Link to the defense : http://wurtv.wur.nl/P2GTV/viewer.html?path=aulatv/2011/02/14/1/video_post.wmv

and here the link to my thesis  : http://edepot.wur.nl/158836