Land Tenure and Land Management Technology: A Case Study from the Central Ethiopia

Land in Ethiopia is a public property. Farmers have use right to transfer or lease use rights of agricultural land. Thus, land tenure systems under the existing public ownership of land derive from official allocation by local government authorities and/or through transfer of land use rights. Farmers\u27 practice of leasing agricultural land in the country is mostly limited to a few years, for instance to maximum of three years in one agreement. The common types of transaction of agricultural land include inheritance, cash renting, sharecropping and gift. The process and act of land transfer among land users, however, is often non-transparent. The transaction usually takes place informally. The land lease market (sharecropping and cash rental) is constrained, inter alia, by lack of clear rules and regulations for secure and transparent land lease transaction. Such situation is therefore expected to influence farmers to differentially manage leased-in and own land parcels in terms of application of sustainable land management technologies. On the other hand, however, most of the agricultural land in Ethiopia requires conservation-based land management technologies. The objective of this paper is to analyze land tenure systems and examine the impact of land tenure systems on the use of land management technologies and draw policy lessons

The Impacts of Farmer Field School Training on Knowledge and Farm Technology Adoption: Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia

This study examines the impact of Farmer Field School (FFS) training program on farmers’ knowledge and farm technology adoption. The FFS program was sponsored by the Ethiopian government and launched in 2010. The study aims to compare the impact of the training on knowledge and agricultural technology adoption of those FFS graduate and non-FFS graduate maize farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia. For this, data was collected in 2013 from 446 randomly selected households of three districts consisting of 218 FFS graduate farmers and 228 non-FFS graduate farmers. The analytical procedure has involved two stages: in the first stage, descriptive analysis was used to detect existence of difference in the household and farm characteristics of the two groups of farmers. In the second stage, a semi-parametric impact evaluation method of propensity score matching with several matching algorithms was employed to estimate the program impacts. The result reveals that although FFS graduate farmers have relatively higher knowledge test score than the non-FFS gradate farmers, farm technology adoption index of the later farmer group exceeds the former groups. This finding suggests that there is no necessarily linear relationship between increased knowledge and increased technology adoption. This further implies that the mental attitude of the smallholder farmers in study area is not actually shaped by misconceptions of technology as claimed by the Ethiopian government, but rather because of their firm understanding of what works and does not work according to their own realities. The policy implication of this finding is that knowledge can be translated into practices if a set of enabling factors and conditions exist. These factors including farmers’ positive perception of the technology benefits, access to complementary inputs, availability of crop insurance scheme, arrangement of credit facilities and favorable output markets as incentive for adopting full technologies

Shocks, Sensitivity and Resilience: Tracking the Economic Impacts of Environmental Disaster on Assets in Ethiopia and Honduras

Droughts, hurricanes and other environmental shocks punctuate the lives of poor and vulnerable populations in many parts of the world. The direct impacts can be horrific, but what are the longer-term effects of such shocks on households and their livelihoods? Under what circumstances, and for what types of households, will shocks push households into poverty traps from which recovery is not possible? In an effort to answer these questions, this paper analyzes the asset dynamics of Ethiopian and Honduran households in the wake of severe environmental shocks. While the patterns are different across countries, both reveal worlds in which the poorest households struggle most with shocks, adopting coping strategies which are costly in terms of both short term and long term well-being. There is some evidence that shocks threaten long term poverty traps and that they tend to militate against any tendency of the poor to catch up with wealthier households. Policy implications are discussed in terms of access to markets and the design of government safety net programs.Ethiopia; Honduras; Shocks; Drought; Hurricanes; Assets; Poverty traps; Asset smoothing; Social capital

Does Farmer Field School Training Improve Technical Efficiency? Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia

This study examines the impact of Farmer Field School (FFS) training program on technical efficiency of smallholder farmers. The FFS program was sponsored by the Ethiopian government and launched in 2010 to scale-up best agricultural practices in the country. The study aims to compare changes in the technical efficiency of those FFS graduate and non-FFS graduate maize farmers in Ethiopia. For this, panel data were collected in two rounds from 446 randomly selected households from three districts consisting of 218 FFS graduate farmers and 228 non-FFS graduate farmers. The analytical procedure has involved three stages: in the first stage, descriptive analyses were used to detect existence of difference in the outcome indicators between the two farmer groups. In the second stage, we applied a semi-parametric impact evaluation method of propensity score matching with several matching algorithms to estimate the program impact. In the third stage, we used Difference-in-Difference as robustness check in detecting causality between program intervention and the technical efficiency changes. Our result shows that although FFS graduate farmers were identified with statistically significant positive technical efficiency difference from non-FFS graduate farmers before the FFS training, this result was reversed two years after the training. This decreasing trend in the technical efficiency of the FFS graduate farmers is explained by their reduced family labour allocation per hectare of their farmland.  As the FFS graduate farmers allocate most of their time for numerous mandatory meetings, trainings, community mobilization, they tend to use more of hired labour than maximizing their own labour for the routine agricultural practices. In the contrary, the non-FFS graduate farmers have been increasing their labour allocation per hectare and use more of non-cash involving inputs since the time of the training. It seems that the FFS training program has put disproportionately higher burden on the FFS graduates in terms giving them additional assignments that compete with the time they need for agricultural activities as compared to non-FFS graduates. Thus, it is really important for the government to consider the timing of trainings, meetings and community works so that such activities should not coincide with the peak time of agricultural land preparation and harvesting times of the farmers. Keywords: Impact Evaluation, technical efficiency, propensity score matching, difference in differenc

Shocks, sensitivity and resilience: tracking the economic impacts of environmental disaster on assets in Ethiopia and Honduras

"Droughts, hurricanes and other environmental shocks punctuate the lives of poor and vulnerable populations in many parts of the world. The direct impacts can be horrific, but what are the longer-term effects of such shocks on households and their livelihoods? Under what circumstances, and for what types of households, will shocks push households into poverty traps from which recovery is not possible? In an effort to answer these questions, this paper analyses the asset dynamics of Ethiopian and Honduran households in the wake of severe environmental shocks. While the patterns are different across countries, both reveal worlds in which the poorest households struggle most with shocks, adopting coping strategies which are costly in terms of both short term and long term well-being. There is some evidence that shocks threaten long term poverty traps and that they tend to militate against any tendency of the poor to catch up with wealthier households. Policy implications are discussed in terms of access to markets and the design of government safety net programs." Authors' AbstractEnvironmental disasters, Economic situation, Impact evaluation, Droughts, Vulnerability, households, Livelihoods, Poverty, coping strategies, Safety nets, Government policy,

Shocks, Sensitivity and Resilience: Tracking the Economic Impacts of Environmental Disaster on Assets in Ethiopia and Honduras

Droughts, hurricanes and other environmental shocks punctuate the lives of poor and vulnerable populations in many parts of the world. The direct impacts can be horrific, but what are the longer-term effects of such shocks on households and their livelihoods? Under what circumstances, and for what types of households, will shocks push households into poverty traps from which recovery is not possible? In an effort to answer these questions, this paper analyzes the asset dynamics of Ethiopian and Honduran households in the wake of severe environmental shocks. While the patterns are different across countries, both reveal worlds in which the poorest households struggle most with shocks, adopting coping strategies which are costly in terms of both short term and long term well-being. There is some evidence that shocks threaten long term poverty traps and that they tend to militate against any tendency of the poor to catch up with wealthier households. Policy implications are discussed in terms of access to markets and the design of government safety net programs.

Determinants of Household Energy Demand in Ethiopia: The Case Study of Addis Ababa City

This paper analyzes the household energy demand in Ethiopia: the case study of Addis Ababa City. The weighted average income of energy is used to estimate the energy demand in the city, using cross sectional data from 466 households in 2012/13. The result indicates that each household spends on average 14.7% or 376.98 birr per month of its expenditure for energy purchase from their total expenditure is 2760.84 birr. Household energy demand is estimated by the share of energy expenditure from total household expenditure. Energy is a necessity good for city households and has positive income elasticity (+0.61). And, household size, the proportion of women in households, household head level of education, owning of dwelling and electric appliance (electric meter and refrigerator) are important underpinning factors that affect the decision to use a particular energy type. Thus, improving access to different energy sources especially the modern ones are essential to increase household modern energy demand and reduce energy poverty in city

Does Farmer Field School Training Improve Technical Efficiency? Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia

This study carries out the impact evaluation of Farmer Field School (FFS) training program on the technical efficiency of smallholder farmers. The FFS program was sponsored by the Ethiopian government and launched in 2010 to scale-up best agricultural practices in the country. The study aims to compare changes in the technical efficiency of those FFS graduate and non-FFS graduate maize producing farmers in Ethiopia, Oromia. For this, panel data were collected in two rounds from 446 randomly selected households from three districts consisting of 218 FFS graduate farmers and 228 non-FFS graduate farmers. The analytical procedure has involved three stages: in the first stage, descriptive analyses were used to detect existence of the difference in the outcome indicators between the two farmer groups. In the second stage, we have applied a semi-parametric impact evaluation method of propensity score matching with several matching algorithms to estimate the program impact. In the third stage, we used Difference-in-Difference as robustness check in detecting causality between program intervention and the technical efficiency. The combined uses of these alternative estimation techniques indicate that the program has a negative impact on the technical efficiency of the FFS graduates. Numerous plausible explanations for this outcome are discussed, and recommendations for improvements are suggested accordingly

Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology: Investment and economic returns

The IAASTD is a promising starting point and provides the opportunity for a rational and holistic discussion on the future of agriculture with the cooperation of all stakeholders involved. It presents a clear message: Business as usual is not an option! A thorough and radical overhaul of present international and national agricultural policies is necessary to meet the challenges of the future. The IAASTD does not offer so called “silver bullet“ solutions, in fact it warns us against believing such solutions exist. Instead, it provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary analysis of the state of agriculture and a wide range of promising approaches.Peer reviewe