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Published in:
Africa and the Land Reform Question Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Transforming the Bodi from Pastoralists to Outgrowers: Land and State Capitalism in South Omo, Southwest Ethiopia

Author : Fana Gebresenbet

Published in: Trajectory of Land Reform in Post-Colonial African States

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Under the broad land question in Ethiopia, this chapter argues that sugar industrialization is accelerating the pace at which villagized Bodi households are integrated into a monetized, capitalist system by making them out-growers and by advancing a more exclusive land tenure system. The chapter has four parts. The first introduces Salamago Woreda, its people, and state projects there (sugar industrialization and villagization). The second part focuses on the changes these state projects are introducing to the agro-pastoral conceptions and understandings of land and land governance and economic life. The third part dwells on the implications of these changes on land tenure, property rights arrangements and production relations. The last part concludes the chapter.

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previous chapter Food and National Security in Nigeria: A Study of the Interconnections
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Footnotes
1
The SNNP regional state is one of the nine regional states created in the federal restructuring of Ethiopia according to the 1994 Constitution (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) 1994). Zone is the third highest administrative level in Ethiopia; and Woreda the second lowest, i.e., federal-region-Zone-Woreda-Kebele.
 
2
Based on figures provided by an Expert from the Zone’s Finance and Economic Development Department, Jinka (11 August 2016).
 
3
This figure from the CSA is not to be believed, as the Dime amount to at least 8000 according to Lucie Buffavand (Personal Communication, 30 August 2016).
 
4
Interview: Project Manager, Kuraz Sugar Development Project, Salamago Woreda (22 February 2012).
 
5
Local government representatives state that the land was only a wet season grazing land, as such not very crucial for the Bodi (Interview: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resource Office Expert, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016). But Lucie Buffavand (Personal Communication, 30 August 2016), who did extensive field work in Bdi land stresses that it was a dry season grazing land and a route to access the Omo River when it gets too dry.
 
6
Interview: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resource Office Expert, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
7
Interview: Official, South Omo Zone Council, Jinka (24 February 2013).
 
8
Interview: Project Manager, Kuraz Sugar Development Project, Salamago Woreda (22 February 2012).
 
9
Such arguments were extensively used by Meles (2011). Galaty’s (2011) critic of such reasoning, by arguing that it is a justification for “settling, pacifying, or displacing pastoralists in the interests of the state” applies here too. For a critique of Meles’ line of argumentation along Galaty’s see Tewolde and Fana (forthcoming).
 
10
“Eleven infrastructure and social service providing centres will be built in each village: school (Grades 1–4, (5–8 being built in Village II (mid-way to Villages I and III)), health post, veterinary post, mill, drinking water station, police station, Kebele office, teachers’ house, agricultural extension agents’ house, health extension workers’ house, and farmers’ training station.” (Tewolde and Fana 2014: 123–124)
 
11
Interview: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resource Office Expert, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
12
Interview: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resource Office Expert, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
13
Interview: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Expert, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
14
Interviews: Official, Water, Irrigation and Energy Department; Official, Pastoralist Affairs Department; Official and two Experts of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department of South Omo Zone. Observations and Interviews in Hamer, Dassenech and Nyangatome Woredas (6–9 August 2016).
 
15
Initially the plan was to provide one hectare for cultivation and 0.5 ha for building houses/backyards per household (see Tewolde and Fana 2014: 124). Now, only 0.25 ha (2500 m2) is slotted for housing area. As is customary the second, third wives live in the same compound, thus increasing the area slotted for housing. Although the government plans that this area will be used to grow vegetables (on backyard gardens), they are rather used for herd camps.
 
16
See Tewolde and Fana (2014, p. 124–126); Interviews: Development Agent, Salamago Woreda; Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
17
Interviews: Development Agent, Salamago Woreda; Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
18
The turning of villagized households into outgrowers for the sugar corporation also makes them, intentional or not, complacent to the dictates of sugar industrialization and appendages their economic and social life/fate with the sugar factories, thus turn them into supporters of the sugar industrialization or at least appeases them. In Mursi areas, for example, of the same Woreda but farther away from the plantation site the government only intends to give 0.5 ha farming land with no possibility of becoming ourgrowers to the factories.
 
19
When it comes to the sugarcane fields, the Sugar Corporation assumed the responsibility of doing all agronomic practices, and the villagized households are becoming outgrowers to the same field tilled and planted some three years ago when they get land certificate and become members of the cooperative in their village. Put briefly, the Bodi are there to get the legal deed over the land which allows them to reap the benefits where they did not sow.
 
20
Interviews: Development Agents, Salamago Woreda; Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
21
These were planned to be distributed among the villages in the following manner: 448 households (HHs) in Koklemeri (Village 1), 173 Male headed household (MHH) and 275 female headed household (FHH); 500 HHs in Arbud (Village 2), 281 MHH and 219 FHH; 500 HHs in Belelong (Village 3), 273 MHH and 227 FHH. (Interview: Official, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, South Omo Zone (2 August 2016); Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, South Omo Zone (2 August 2016); Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda, 4 August 2016).
 
22
All villagized households getting 0.75 ha of land to grow sugarcane will translate into having a total of 1072.5 ha being planted with sugarcane. But the total land prepared and planted with sugarcane is about 1600 ha (Interview: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda, 4 August 2016).
 
23
A total of 182 (115 MHH and 67 FHH) in Koklemeri village, 199 (123 MHH and 76 FHH) in Arbud village and 132 (77 MHH and 55 FHH) in Belelong village have collected their land certificates. The certification started in November 2014, and one will be eligible to get a certificate only if s/he constructs house and clears land (for maize cultivation) after joining a village. (Interview: Official, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, South Omo Zone (2 August 2016); Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, South Omo Zone (2 August 2016); Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda, 4 August 2016).
 
24
Interviews: Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda; Development Agent, Salamago Woreda; Expert, Agriculture and Natural Resources Bureau, Salamago Woreda (4 August 2016).
 
25
This is from personal observation since 2011.
 
26
The number of FHH indicated in footnote 16 and 18 are second/third wives, not female headed households in the real sense of the term. In Afar female headed households, considered incapable to farm equally with men, get smaller land holdings. In Bodi, as there is no clear distinction between MHH and FHH all get equal land holding.
 
27
Here the government is disapproving of the local culture and de-legalizing the second/third wife. Zone and Woreda experts state that the husband’s name and photograph should come first on the certificate of the MHH, while it comes second on the certificate of his second/third wife (wives). Legally speaking, it should not matter whether it comes first or second. In practice however the husband’s name and picture does not appear anywhere on the certificates of FHH.
 
28
State capitalism is defined here in the manner used by Musacchio and Lazzarini (2014: 2): “the widespread influence of the government in the economy, either by owning majority or minority equity positions in companies or by providing subsidized credit and/or other privileges to private companies. The new varieties of state capitalism differ from the more traditional model in which governments own and manage state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as extensions of the public bureaucracy. We refer to this traditional model as Leviathan as an entrepreneur” (Musacchio and Lazzarini 2014: 2).
 
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Metadata
Title
Transforming the Bodi from Pastoralists to Outgrowers: Land and State Capitalism in South Omo, Southwest Ethiopia
Author
Fana Gebresenbet
Copyright Year
2019
Book
Trajectory of Land Reform in Post-Colonial African States

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78700-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-78701-5

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78701-5_4