Book Review: The great land giveaway

The
book by Dr. Aklog (hereafter referred to as the author) on Ethiopia titled “The Great Land Giveaway” is a
phenomenal piece work reflecting the culmination of a dedicated research effort
by an economic pundit with a hallmark of professional excellence and
experiential richness. It goes into great depth of analysis of the
socio-economic and political realities of Ethiopia today and, predicated on the
outcome of the analysis, foresees a looming misfortune befalling Ethiopia if
the present anomaly of land giveaway and socio-economic mismanagement are to be
allowed to continue to prevail in the times to come.

Summarized in broad terms,
uncontrolled access, by invitation, to fertile farm land by outsiders with no
veritable returns to Ethiopia, corruption and nepotism at all levels of the
system, insatiable greed at the highest level, ethnic and political considerations
for entitlement to economic assets including land and,
in total, unbounded control of the economic and social life of the people are
the troubling features that the author brings out in the book. Towards the end
the author highlights painstaking measures to be taken in unity if the travesty
of development and the menacing trend are to be reversed. Mirrored in the book
are the arbitrariness of socio-economic management and the looming dangers
facing Ethiopia not just vis-a-vis the generation today but also as a recorded
history for posterity.

What
are the salient issues that the author underscores in his intensive and
extensive analysis of Ethiopia’s socio-economic disorder? Are there other
authoritative Africa-wide and other findings of studies and established
experiences that underpin the author’s findings and arguments about Ethiopia?

1.         Issues that have taken centre stage in
the book

1.1       Giving away fertile farm land (at nominal
fees) to foreign companies and individuals (with a select few of local elites also
having some share) in the name of Foreign
Direct Investment (FDI).

The
foreign investors are given an unprecedented carte blanche. With no binding and
enforceable conditions included in the grant the foreign investors use the farm
lands to grow products of their choices, use technologies to maximize
production and export the produce to their countries of origin and, what are
left there-from, to the highest external bidders. The continued wellbeing of
the communities they displace and the growth and development of Ethiopia at
large as well as the protections of environmental resources including wildlife
do not go into their calculations. What is left for the displaced communities
is the chance of seasonally selling their labour for meagre compensations.

The
official arguments of (i) promoting growth and development through the land
grant and (ii) the grant being only of unoccupied or unutilized land are a
travesty. First, the author convincingly argues that the nation’s genuine and
sustainable growth and development can occur only when Ethiopians own economic
assets including land, produce what they consider are possible and economical,
process their raw outputs into final use products and finally offer the fruits
of their labour to the markets within and without. Second, there is no
unoccupied or unutilized land except those lying fallow or are grazing areas
left to regenerate. Further, the highlands of Ethiopia constituting areas above
1500 metres above sea level and representing 40 percent of the nation’s land
mass are home for over 80 percent (87 percent to be exact) of the population
and correspondingly of the farming households. The farming households are in
dire need of farm lands. Contrary to the land use master plan of the 1980s
(jointly produced with FAO and UNDP) which prevents cultivation of land with
inclination of 30 percent  and above,
small holding farmers continue to expand their cultivation of hillsides thereby
degrading the vitality of the soil on them.

In
the context of these vivid lines of the author’s arguments, the role of the Government should have been one of
creating enabling conditions through distribution of land with the right of
ownership, building of farm and market infrastructure and provision of inputs
(including fertilizers) in the types and magnitudes required.

In
a rare occurrence and providing the validity of the author’s argument the new
Head of FAO and a Kenyan prominent businessman (the latter taking Ethiopia as a
case in point) in an interview with Aljazeera, call land grant a complete
failure.

1.2       Development for the author, as for
others, means improvement of the lives of Ethiopians across the land.
Fundamental in this argument is that when Ethiopians are not empowered to be
active role players in their own development and continue to be side spectators
development in the nation’s context becomes a misnomer. Growth can occur
without development but only to raise the fortunes of a select group of elites
and to improve income for the state treasury.

1.3       A misconceived view of the regime in
power that the author brings to light in his researched findings is that
development is faster and impacting when it is state-led. This, of course, is
antithesis to the recorded experiences of development. The lessons from the defunct command economies of the past
did not seem to have made a dent in the understanding of the power controlling
the economy. Present day Vietnam, according to Greg Mills (Greg Mills, 2010)
raised itself from a net importer of agricultural commodities including rice to
the world’s second largest exporter of rice and coffee only after its land
reform in which private ownership created a stake for those working on the
farms.

1.4       The private sector, normally considered
as the engine of development has been, according to the researched findings of
the author, wantonly weakened principally through monopoly of the major
business and industry sectors by the state-cum-party enterprises but also
through discouraging policies, tax burdens and bureaucratic machineries to
reduce the level playing field. Evidenced by the findings is that there is a
void in the enabling environment for the sector to function with freedom,
fairness and unfettered drive.

A
researched revelation by Greg Mills about private sector in Africa in his book
“Why
Africa is Poor” shows great similarities to the fate of private sector
in Ethiopia. The following is what Greg Mills writes:

“Africa’s
people are poverty stricken not because the private sector does not exist or
was unwilling to work in sometimes difficult settings. These people and
companies do exist, though the private sector is often not private at all, but
rather an elite-linked system of rent seeking. Even where there is a degree of
independence, government attitudes towards private businesses range from
suspicion to outright hostility.

1.5       Ethiopia, as truly and convincingly
explained in the book, possesses bountiful supply of natural and human
resources. The troubling reality, however, is that there is a web of man-made
factors that continue to militate against the deployment of these resources to
its growth and development: They included distorted policies, divisive and
non-inclusive governance, state and party control of the economy, nepotism,
rampant corruption, weakening of the private sector, absence of fair and
impartial access to opportunities and declining relevance of education to
growth and development. The regime in power preaches about agro-based
industrialization which is a travesty in the absence of Ethiopians owning economic
assets, playing the roles of producers, processors, exporters, importers and,
in general, participants in their nation’s growth and development. The concept
and practice of what the author calls “virtuous
cycle” take root only when the latter conditions prevail.

1.6       Finally, the book makes extensive
coverage of small holder farms and the inherent economic benefits they create.
In particular, the following superior values of the farms are articulated:

Intensive
use of land

Capacity
for rural labour absorption

Crop-livestock
integration

High
labour input per unit of area

High
responsiveness to incentives

Great
opportunity for land augmenting

Some
living examples reinforcing the author’s down-to-earth analysis and convincing
conclusions are the pathway to development followed by South Asian countries in
the past and the remarkable development performance of Vietnam today which
placed emphasis on small-scale agriculture.

To
the deserved credit of the author, he does not underestimate the significance
of large-scale farming. In fact, he reminisces about graduates of the then
Alemaya agricultural college and retired citizens of the nation going into
operating large-size farms with impressive successes. His prime contention is
that that ought to be left to native Ethiopians.

2.              
“The primary reason why Africa’s people are poor is because

                    their
leaders make this choice” (Greg Mills, 2010).

A
few statements are quoted from Greg Mills in some of the preceding paragraphs
to support the arguments of the author about some of the issues on Ethiopia.
Greg Mills, in fact, highlights many more retarding factors regarding the
development of Africa which have astounding similarities to those that the
author discusses on Ethiopia. The following are some of them:

Reliance
on primary commodities for exports and incorrect policies and procedures to
facilitate trade

Inefficient
land use

Ruinous
and self-interested decisions taken by single parties and with no bottom up
pressure

A
system thriving on corruption and nepotism

Land
holding structure in which it is distributed on the basis of political
allegiances thereby impeding ownership and entrepreneurship

Top
down imposition of the will of governments and resulting institutionalization
of weak governance

Bad
choices in place of better ones in the broader public interest because the
latter is not in the leaders’ personal and often financial self-interests.

Leaders externalizing their problems making them the
responsibility of others.

An
interesting conclusion comes out visibly from the research outputs by Greg
Mills about Africa and by the author on Ethiopia: The issues highlighted for
Africa as a whole and for Ethiopia as part of Africa greatly coincide. This
certainly is not because the two authors came together and shared or reconciled
findings but rather each independently carrying out his own research supported
by his own vast experiences led him to the conclusion that happened to be
similar to that of the other. This is a telling
evidence that the book by the author on Ethiopia is the outcome of a dedicated
research by one who has his country at heart. The regime in power opted for
almost all the failing strategies that stunted and still continue to stunt the
development of Africa. The book deserves not only to be read but also owned by
all Ethiopians and by those whose hearts go out to Ethiopia.

Final Point:

A
considered suggestion to the author is to produce an abridged version of the
book both in English and Amharic to serve as handbooks of this historic work.
This, of course, implies more in terms of effort, time and material resources
but the potential rewarding impact will outweigh all of these.

—

The author can be reached at [email protected]