An analysis of how large-scale agricultural land acquisitions in Ethiopia have been justified, implemented and opposed

Abstract

Despite the slowdown in large-scale agricultural land acquisitions in recent years, huge tracts of land have already changed hands, and such land acquisitions continue to take place (albeit on a much smaller scale). Ethiopia is an African country that has attracted significant attention in relation to this phenomenon. This article explores the discourses deployed to justify the transfer of huge tracts of agricultural land in Ethiopia and the actual implementation of the policy so far. More importantly, it examines how the discursive justifications and actual implementation of the policy have been challenged and opposed in Ethiopia. Although the Ethiopian Government has resorted to coercion to implement large-scale land acquisitions, there have been noticeable challenges posed by different actors with important roles in delegitimising the process of large-scale land acquisitions, resisting the release of land to investors for commercial agriculture and impeding the performance of investors in undertaking commercial farm operations.

Keywords:

• Ethiopia
• large-scale agricultural land acquisitions
• policy implementation
• resistance
• counter-discourse coalitions

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Monash University Faculty of Law and Monash University Institute of Graduate Research for their financial contribution towards my fieldwork in Ethiopia, which has been undertaken as part of my PhD research project. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of the article.

Notes

1. Borrowing insights from Markakis, peripheries refers to people and places that have been at the margins of Ethiopia’s political economy (Markakis, 2011). The ‘lowland’ qualification in this article is used with a view to limit the focus of the study only to such regions as Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Afar, and Somalia and some parts of SNNP (such as South Omo).

2. Many of the contracts stipulate that the purpose of the lease agreement is for the production of cotton, tea, oils seeds and biofuel productions. For further details, see land deals concluded by the federal government that have been made publicly available on the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ website: http://www.moa.gov.et/land-leased.

3. See note 1.

4. For instance, Adama Agro Industries and Hash Agro Industries, which acquired land in SNNP, have not started operations, according to an assessment report by AILAA (2015).

5. Article 14 (5) of the Proclamation to Provide for the Registration and Regulation of Charities and Societies states that human rights advocacy is reserved for Ethiopian Societies and Charities. According to Article 2(2) of this Proclamation, for any organisation to be called an Ethiopian Society or Charity, a minimum of 90% of its funding has to come from a domestic source. The requirement of the Proclamation that 90% of an organisation’s funding has to be sourced domestically for it to take part in human and democratic rights advocacy has had devastating consequences on the existence of such societies. Many of the civil society organisations that hitherto worked on issues of human and democratic rights advocacy had to wind up their programme or re-register as organisations to be engaged in other development activities (Amnesty International, 2012; Sisay, 2012, p. 375).

6. MELCA Ethiopia, a local civil organisation, had expressed concerns on the dangers of agro-fuel development in Ethiopia for the environment where such farms operated (Desalegn, 2014). This was, however, just before the advent of the recent large-scale land acquisitions (i.e. before the rise of interest in farmland following the 2008 world food price crisis).