Migration, environmental change and agrarian transition in upland regions: learning from Ethiopia, Kenya and Nepal

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the relationship between cyclical labour migration and agrarian transition in the uplands of Nepal, Ethiopia and Kenya. It shows that while migration decision-making is linked to expanding capitalist markets, it is mediated by local cultural, political and ecological changes. In turn, cyclical migration goes on to shape the trajectory of change within agriculture. The dual dependence on both migrant income and agriculture within these upland communities often translates into an intensifying work burden on the land, and rising profits for capitalism. However, on some occasions this income can support increased productivity and accumulation within agriculture – although this depends on both the agro-ecological context and the local agrarian structure.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• Kenya
• Nepal
• Ethiopia
• remittance
• agrarian transition
• capitalism
• peasantry

Acknowledgements

The authors are extremely grateful for the support and hospitality provided by the community in the study communities in Bhojpur, Nepal, the Upper Tana basin in Kenya, and in Maichew and Raya Azebo in Ethiopia. Invaluable field support was provided by Tesfu Arbha and Haimanot Woldegebriel in Ethiopia, Bimala Dhimal, Manita Raut and Sujeet Karn in Nepal, and Veronicah Thuo, Joyce Ndathy, Simon Njoroge and Nicholas Kuria in Kenya. The research was funded by the CGIAR programme for Water, Land and Ecosystems.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Sugden (2019) for further elaboration on this point.

2 Kebele is a local unit of governance.

3 For an analysis of feudalism in the context of this region of Nepal see Sugden, Seddon, and Raut (2018).

4 Herding of cattle and chauri (yak-cow crossbreed) once brought significant dairy income to the Sherpa communities, yet it has declined significantly due to market pressures and high labour demands.

5 The ‘owned’ proportion is generally small for this group (at 0.18 ha of khet land for paddy production and 0.27 ha of rainfed bari land), and on average forms well over half of the cultivated area. 

6 The population of Embahasti is 4309 and of Hawlti is 11,881.

7 For example, a factory labourer in Nepal’s lowland towns could earn between $150 and $250 a month. A semi-skilled worker can earn even more.

8 For short term or seasonal work outside, this may not be considered by households as migrant income.

9 See Taylor-Nicholson et al. (2014) for more on the migration brokerage sector in Nepal and Tufa (2019) for Ethiopia.

10 The Kenya and Ethiopia study was done 1.5 years after the Nepal study as a separately funded piece of work, and thus the questions vary slightly.

11 This group formed less than a quarter of migrants in the Kenyan dataset and just less than a third in Ethiopia and Nepal.

12 Twenty-nine per cent of households in Sanrang and 17% in Aaptari/Bhadare also reported that they had improved their irrigation supply since the migration of a family member, although this was not directly connected to remittances, and was due to some recent small scale infrastructural works by a local development organization, although some households had paid to construct pipes to their land themselves.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fraser Sugden

Fraser Sugden is geographer with over 15 years experience conducting research on the political economy of agrarian change in South and East Asia. He is presently a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham, and at the time of conducting the research for this article he was a Senior Researcher at the International Water Management Institute and the country representative for IWMI Nepal, where he remains a visiting fellow.

Likimyelesh Nigussie

Likimyelesh Nigussie is a Research Officer at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Liza Debevec

Liza Debevec (PhD) is a Social Anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in field research and development work in Sub Saharan Africa on topics of food, religion, gender, agriculture, migration and water resources. She holds a PhD from University of St Andrews, UK (2005) and currently works as the Senior Gender and Social Inclusion specialist at the Global Water Partnership organisation. At the time of writing this article she was working at the International Water Management Institute and led two Work Packages on the EU Horizon 2020 project AGRUMIG.

Ravic Nijbroek

Ravic Nijbroek (PhD) is a human geographer with 18 years’ experience working with rural communities, government representatives, NGOs and scientists on tropical agriculture and conservation. He has conducted research on landscape restoration governance in East Africa, ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change adaptation in Brazil and the Philippines, and REDD+ policy in Suriname. He holds degrees in Human Geography (PhD) from the University of South Florida (2012), Systems Science (MS) from Louisiana State University (2003), Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ME) from the University of Florida (1999), and Environmental Engineering (BS) from the University of Florida (1997). Since August 2020, he is an independent consultant based in Nairobi, Kenya.