Ethiopia’s land laws do not give farmers and city dwellers a reason to develop their land or grow more, and the government should work toward letting Ethiopians own hundreds of thousands of plots of farmland and urban land, the commentator Kebour Ghenna argued in an essay dated 6 July 2019 and published by borkena.
Kebour acknowledged how sensitive the subject is. “Ethiopians have a deep notion, rooted in their feelings and their minds, that land is everything,” he wrote. People are so attached to the small plots they hold as community members that they fear any change to the system, “even if the latter works far better.”
He gave three reasons for reform. The current system, he said, has failed to give incentives to develop land and raise farm output, though he warned that care was needed “not to foster more corruption or entice new oligarchs.” Properly done, land reform would widen chances for social and job mobility and make farming more efficient by letting land move to more productive users through land markets. And secure tenure would encourage long-term investment, because owners would know their returns would not be taken away.
Kebour did not call for full privatization. He wrote that the state should keep the right to take back land that is wasted, decide which land is privatized and who receives it, and designate how land is used for public purposes, while owners get broad powers to possess, use, manage and control their land. Reform would work, he said, only as part of a wider package of agrarian measures, including new public investment in sustainable technology for small rain-fed farms, income protection and support for farmers, and rural credit. “Unfortunately there is no sign whatsoever of any such public priority with the current administration,” he wrote.
He also argued that before any land is privatized, Ethiopia needs a complete overhaul of its banking, commercial, bankruptcy, real estate finance, tax, labour and administrative laws, as well as its property law. Privatization, he wrote, “is an inherently controversial issue that will generate considerable public and political debate,” and would require standing committee reports and public discussion before the prime minister decides. Kebour said land was the first of six reforms he believed the new administration should consider. The essay first appeared on his Facebook page.
Sources: borkena