School of Geosciences
Dissertation
For the degree of
MSc Environment and Development
Stella Beghini
August 2014
Seedlings of a contested modernity:
New ‘Green Revolution’ claims and
their implications on the seed
sovereignty in Ethiopia
ii
Abstract
Boosting agricultural productivity through the enhancement of primary inputs such as seeds is
considered a relevant measure by governments and international organisations in order to
increase the smallholder farmers’ income and launch a ‘Green Revolution’ in Africa.
Ethiopia, a country marked by dramatic famines in the last century, is trying to adopt a
paradigm lying on technological innovation, commodification of seeds and providing access
to the market for smallholder farmers. This dissertation analyses the data gathered in Addis
Ababa through interviews investigating the rationales of the policies seeking to strengthen the
role of public and private seed companies and attracting the agricultural investments. The
findings present a contested relation between the Ethiopian government and the control of
farmers’ livelihood resources. The pressure revealing a top-down approach in the adoption of
‘modern’ inputs, such as high-yielding varieties, is currently shaping the seeds sovereignty of
farmers in the name of modernity and productivity.
Word count: 14881
iii
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank my supervisor Dr. Kanchana R. Ruwanpura of the School of Geosciences for
her constant and insightful advices during the fieldwork and in Edinburgh.
My trip in Ethiopia would have never been possible without the family of Chiara Lonardi who
hosted me in Addis Ababa, introducing me to the challenges and beauties to live in Ethiopia.
Ahmesugenalew.
I thank as well all the people that supported my work and inspired me with their insights and
actions, in Ethiopia and elsewhere. I want to thank all the friends that surrounded me inside
and outside the library and made this year incredibly enriching and amazing.
To my family the most sincere and grateful thanks for their constant support during my
studies.
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Statement of Originality
I hereby declare that this dissertation has been composed by me and is based on my own work
Signed
……..
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Table of contents
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: Seed sovereignty and the state: a contested relationship .................................................. 6
Food security and food sovereignty: two clashing interpretations ................................................ 7
The politicisation of seeds and the Green Revolution paradigm .................................................... 9
Governmentality of the state in the implementation of science and technology .....................13
Chapter 3: Overview of the Ethiopian formal and informal systems and the new networks
operating in the country ................................................................................................................................16
The informal seed system in Ethiopia: the value of diversity .......................................................16
The formal seed system: features and main actors ...........................................................................19
Ethiopian agriculture: planning future productivity in a historically food insecure country
.........................................................................................................................................................................21
Chapter 4: Encountering seeds in a metropolis: methodology of research ....................................23
Description of research’s methods and rationale for selection .....................................................23
Constraints and weaknesses of the chosen methods ........................................................................28
Chapter 5: An Ethiopian Green Revolution? ..........................................................................................30
Strengthening the formal seed system in an agro-ecological diverse country: which way
forward?........................................................................................................................................................31
Capital and technology discourse in Ethiopian policies: a wider spectrum on the poverty
reduction solution trough investment in ‘modern’ agriculture .....................................................37
Seeds of knowledge and sovereignty ...................................................................................................43
Chapter 6: Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................47
Appendix ...........................................................................................................................................................50
Annex I: interview transcript I ...............................................................................................................50
Annex II: Interview transcript II ............................................................................................................54
Annex III: Table of interviews quoted in-text ...................................................................................59
Annex IV: “As the Benefit of Agricultural Investment is Multipronged Give not Ear to
Doomsayer Blogger!” – Ministry of Agriculture- Agricultural Investment Agency (n.d.) ..60
References .........................................................................................................................................................64
List of tables
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Table 1. Institutional and civil society exponents and rationale for selection
26
Table 2. Table of interviews quoted in-text
60
Acronyms
ATA
Agricultural Transformation Agency
AGP
Agricultural Growth Program
AGRA
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
EIAR
Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research
EOSA
Ethio-Organic Seed Action
ESE
Ethiopian Seed Enterprise
FAO
Food and Agriculture Organisation
HRW
Human Rights Watch
HYV
High-Yielding Variety
ISSD
Integrated Seed Sector Development
LVC
La Via Campesina
MoA
Ministry of Agriculture
MoFED
Ministry of Finance and Economic Development
OPV
Open Pollinated Varieties
PASDEP
Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty
PASS
Program for Africa’s Seed System
PIF
Policy and Investment Framework
USAID
United States Agency for International Development
WB
World Bank
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Sad as it may sound their (lowlands inhabitants) farming system too has been archaic. In light of these facts
there is a call for breathing life in to their way of living. Rendering people of the two regional states beneficiaries
of socio-economic services necessitates clustering dots of huts scattered across the respective regional states and
introducing modern agriculture. And as such creating communities letting people of these states live in big
villages than scattered houses has become a focus of attention. Towards this end selecting virgin lands practical
works have kicked off. The idea was already there. It was waiting for a ripe moment. Many inhabitants were
eagerly looking forward to it.
Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural
Investment Agency, (2013)
Commodify nature, technology and even the food system, the productivity, the mechanisms, this is the neoliberal
trend. Supermarket feed you what they have, you have more options, you have more alternatives but you have
nothing to do with it. The problem is with the system that supports that kind of production. We can say that this
is in the way of producing commodities and the other thing is the production of food [...]. So, in here, seed is
having a very very wide understanding as a source of food […]. And it is associated with so many things,
agriculture, economy, family system, conditions and so on…
NGO2 exponent, 2014, personal
communication
Seeds are increasingly concentrating attention on their forms of use and debates around the
ownerships and control of these biological resources have triggered among many scholars and
political movements around the world (Kloppenburg, 1988; Broswimmer, 1991; Anderson and
Campeau, 2013). Issues surrounding the adoption of GMOs and hybrid seeds are being raised also
in the developing countries and they concentrate voices on the (in)validity of the Green Revolution,
defined as an increase of yields, as a solution to low productivity and poverty in Africa (Juma and
Seralgedin, 2008; Mayet, 2009; Bassey, 2009). Indeed, claims and economic investments are being
carried out in the continent to sustain an accelerated growth in agricultural productivity through a
more robust adoption of modern technologies: a profound shift from subsistence farming to a
modern and marketable system directed to expand national GDPs is the basis sought for this
1
process. ‘Alliances’ and international partnerships, such as AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution
in Africa), work on providing smart seed ‘toolboxes’, ‘pro-poor GMOs’ and modern knowledge to
the African poor who want to get rid of poverty soon and start a business (O’Connor Funk, 2009;
Bailey, Willoughby and Grzywacz, 2014).
Some agrarian movements radically step over this notion of development as an increase of the
access into the market and they reconstruct the meanings of poverty and development: indeed,
poverty can be considered as an outcome of this type of ‘development’, rather than the point of
departure where the developmental forces start to ‘intervene’ (McMicheal, 2006). Peasants’
movements gathered around the concept of ‘food sovereignty’ as the right to decide the food
system, epitomise an alternative approach of the role of biotechnology and centralised programs as
a cure to overcome subsistence agriculture. This is empirically operationalized with locally adapted
and more ecologically sound approaches that are developed to improve agricultural systems, being
“compatible with the needs and the aspirations of the peasants” (Altieri, 2002:1). This system of
‘agro-ecology’ has sparkled around this concept and it could be defined as a wholesome integration
of ecological and social concerns: “the integrative study of the ecology of the entire food system,
encompassing ecological, economic and social dimensions” (Francis et.al, 2003:100).
The relevance of seeds policies and the threaten that the monopoly and privatisation of plant genetic
resources can have on farmers’ resilience and agro-biodiversity is teased out also by the Special
Rapporteur on the right to food, Oliver De Shutter (2009). Seeds can be indeed defined as the
backbone of the sovereignty of peasants over their agrarian resources (Brenzner Kerr, 2013): the
extent of the political control of seeds in Ethiopia is the main criterion of this research investigating
the relations between the state and the sovereignty of peasants over their food and livelihood’s
sources.
2
Studying the political ecology of seeds in a developing country, Ethiopia, represents a mean to
explore the nexuses between modernisation, in this case of agriculture, state, knowledge and
peasants’ sovereignty over their resources. Indeed, as affirmed by McCann (2011:24), “seeds coevolve with human society and economy and constitute a body of complex historical activities that
includes the ideas, exigencies and economic life of farmers”. However, it has been reputed
necessary to examine the developmental role of the state in its willingness to reach an accelerated
economic growth in the near future. In the last ten years, new policies and partnerships of the
government with international actors such as AGRA are defining patterns of transformation of
agriculture in the Ethiopian fields. The ‘will to improve’ of the Ethiopian state lies its fundaments in
a equation similar to the one sought during the Green Revolution in Asia in the 1960s where a
concentration of research, capital and politics shaped the traditional farming system (Pearse, 1980).
Researches are focusing as well on the ‘cosmography of power’ of the federal apparatuses that are
creating dispossessions of farmers’ livelihoods, forced in a questionable transformation process
characterised by ‘rationalisation’, ‘improvements’, ‘development’ and that overcomes strict
agricultural terms (Makki and Geisler, 2011).
Authors have catalysed attention as well to the combination of international and national pressure to
increase the amount of agricultural investments: commercial pressures resulting from international
drivers are filtered through the state as it attempts to promote its own developmental objectives and
manage the competing interests of dominant groups in society” (Lavers, 2012:796).
Bringing modernity into the country involves a displacement of modern and improved science and
technology into the seeds and agricultural domain: this process is analysed in the specific context of
Ethiopia and the significances for the farming traditional knowledge.
3
In my work, I consider the rationales of the policies and actors aiming to co-opt investments in the
formal seed system. The positions of the stakeholders interviewed in this process reveal the great
importance of agriculture as an economic development agent that can reduce poverty in short time.
Modernisation of smallholder agriculture, however, bears impacts on the sovereignty of Ethiopian
peasants and the whole social system, indeed “modernisation is not simply an increase in a set of
indices. It involves profound changes in individual and group behaviour” (Soja, 1968, as cited in
Peet and Hartwick, 2009:131). The inner question that brought me to Ethiopia was the
configuration of the peasants’ seed sovereignty in this special momentum: will the agricultural
seeds more likely to be under control of farmers or the seed sovereignty will get undermined by
pressuring instances of ‘improved yields’?
My findings suggest that the country finds itself in a very crucial stage and this encouraged growth
in adopting the modern agriculture paradigm, relying dramatically more on external inputs, bears
challenges for the biodiversity that sustain Ethiopian peasants and impacts the sovereignty over
their livelihoods. The interviews’ main results corresponded to a highly politicization of the sources
and control of seeds: the process of adopting modern seed varieties is the metonym of the
transformation that the Ethiopian agriculture is encountering. Expensive high-yielding varieties are
increasingly sponsored by private and public seed companies and they carry the instances of
modernity and food security. However, questions on dependency of external inputs and
misunderstanding of the farming system have to be acknowledged and several stakeholders have
pointed them out.
I argue as well that this paradigm is still at an initial stage and a considerable extent of farmers is
still using the traditional varieties developed in the informal seeds. However, this ‘Green
Revolution’ model is attracting investments and reaching the goal of exporting grains is being
translated into pressures over land and agricultural resources, identifying the smallholder farmers as
agents of commercialisation, while retaining the public ownership of the land. The research teased
4
out as well the centre-periphery division of the country: the lowlands, on the south-west part of
Ethiopia, are reputed terra nullius, with scarce human settlements, mainly inhabited by nomadic
people, and ‘virgin lands’ to be exploited in this circle of accumulation and power. Indeed, the
regional states lying near the borders of Sudan and South Sudan, ethnically different and
historically marginalised from the hub of sedentary regulated power of the highlands
(corresponding mainly on the current Tigray, Amhara and Oromia regional states) configure spaces
of enclosures where the sovereignty of local settlers is reputed to be highly undermined since the
federal authorities provide over thirty years leases of large amount of land (Vaughan and Tronvoll,
2003; Markakis, 2011).
After this introduction, the second chapter analyses the two main body of literature engaged in this
dissertation, presenting the theoretical framework of the food sovereignty approach, the
politicisation of seeds and the linkages with the Green Revolution of the 1960s. The last section of
the literature review outlines the importance of considering the systematic role of the state in
implementing in its territory a scientific modern ‘truth’, more uniform and controllable. The third
chapter aims to provide a description of the characteristics, actors and challenges of the Ethiopian
seed sector, pointing out the values of the formal and the informal seed systems. In chapter four the
methodology of research is addressed, along with the constraints encountered in the fieldwork. The
fifth chapter discusses the three main findings of the fieldwork and critically analyses the
hegemonic role of the Ethiopia state in pressuring a transformation in the agriculture; the rationales
and the limits of this model are teased out. In the conclusion, an assessment of the seed sovereignty
of Ethiopian is given, considering the current trend to develop a ‘Green Revolution’ in the country.
5
Chapter 2: Seed sovereignty and the state: a contested relationship
Issues surrounding the peasantry are today embedded in complex discourses and practices that
involve global scenarios of capitalist ‘accumulation by dispossession’, as theorised by Harvey
(2003): specifically, debates and claims linking the peasants with the political control over
resources have sparkled in the last two decades.
Seeds, specifically, are here theorised as a crucial input for farmers’ livelihood and in the last
century they received a growing attention from international organisations, food and seed
corporations. Therefore, studying the politics of access to seeds and the state’s configurations in
agriculture helps to generate insights to the main questions of this dissertation.
The aim of this chapter is to bring together the food sovereignty approach, as a revolutionary
movement seeking to dismantle the current neoliberal food system, to issues bound with the
politicisation of seeds and the science and technology propagated by the state. The current policies
and solutions expressed by the World Bank, FAO, national governments and philanthropy bodies,
such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, seeking for a ‘Green Revolution in Africa’, are
nourished with Malthusians claims, and are challenging, theoretically and empirically, food
sovereignties around the world. The last part is consecrated to the development of the
‘governmentality’ notion and the practical approaches in implementing ‘green revolutions’ in the
state’s space: moreover, it will be argued that the use of science and technology, fostering in this
case the increase of productivity and a general modernisation process, is embedded in political and
control intentions over the peasantry and its farming knowledge.
6
Food security and food sovereignty: two clashing interpretations
The cornerstone of peasants’ reconfiguration and identity is represented by the constitution in 1996
of La Via Campesina, a global network of rural and peasants’ associations from developed and
developing countries that defined the concept of food sovereignty and its worldwide agenda (LVC,
1996). This movement takes the distances from the neoliberal food regime that follows the capital’s
trajectory and dictates, resulting in a growing incidences of food’s movement and labour’s
movement worldwide (LVC, 2000).
The village of Nyéléni in Mali has been a crucial hub for associations interested in food
sovereignty, where the concept has been further expressed: “food sovereignty is the right of people
to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sounds and sustainable
methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (Nyéléni Forum, 2007:1).
The definition of the ‘agriculture system’ entails indeed the whole control over the food system but
also the control over markets, land, water and methods of production (Patel, 2009; Desmarais,
2010). The extent of sovereignty evaluates as well the social and environmental justice and it
guarantees “democratic control over food systems-from production and processing, to distribution,
marketing and consumption” (Holt-Giménez, 2009:146). In this framework, agricultural systems
contrasting the reliance of modern agriculture on fossil fuels and high-cost inputs sold by
agribusiness companies are sought and practices through agro-ecological schemes and sustainable
crop intensification: it can be exemplified with the urban agriculture revolution in Cuba started in
the early 1990s and successfully deployed without chemical fertilisers and other inputs deriving
from fossil fuels in a time where the products derived from oil were not available due to the fall of
the Soviet Union and the US embargo (Koont, 2009; Wright 2009).
7
On the contrary, the concept of food security stands on the definition given by international
institutions such as the FAO: “ Food security [is] a situation that exists when all people, at all times,
have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their
dietary need and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO, 2001, as cited in Patel,
2009).
This definition built on the access to food and not ton who provides it, is deemed to be incomplete
and problematic by the current neoliberal regime’s critics who state that this system, privileging
capital mobility and flexibility “is converting agriculture to agribusiness, accelerate global circuits
of food and agricultural capital via a profound transformation of relations of consumption”
(McMicheal, 2006:409). This sentence is particularly linked to the role that agriculture plays in the
national economy, where tradable surpluses are sought and risk to jeopardise other states with less
economic capacity: “they structured a specific set of international relations in which power—to
restructure international trade and production in one state’s favour— was wielded in the unusual
form of subsidized exports of surplus commodities” (Friedmann, 1993:31).
Indeed, the 2008 food crisis where the food prices rose by 83% in three years, is considered to be
also a result of monopolisation of agro-industries and industrial farming (Holt-Giménez, 2009). The
phenomenon of the 2008 food crisis has particularly contributed to the shaping of grassroots
organisations and the establishment of parameters, goals and deeper involvement in the food
sovereignty agenda (Shawki, 2012).
Therefore, these movements born around the concept of food sovereignty embody a substantial and
contesting standpoint and they coincide with a working platform seeking to “create a potential to
reframe and reconstitute an agrarian citizenship that reworks the metabolic rift between society and
nature” (Wittman, 2009:805): this citizenship will be analysed in the national trend researched in
8
Ethiopia, seeking political connections and their quality between seeds, seeds’ users and
governmental policies.
The politicisation of seeds and the Green Revolution paradigm
Seeds and seed sovereignty are the major concern of this dissertation and in the last century seeds
systems have profoundly changed around the world, in terms of actors, inputs and interests
involved.
A wide recognition of seeds as one of the most relevant elements in agricultural systems encounters
the opinion of scholars, grassroots movements and farmers. Seeds have been and still are a
consistent and everyday part of peasants’ livelihood and they hold a special place in the food
sovereignty discourse: tracing seeds history and geography encompasses social, environmental and
political relations (LVC, 2013). ‘Struggles’ over the control of seeds are current issues and they can
be glances of changing patterns of farming systems and scientific evolution (Shiva, 2000; Kinchy,
2012).
Botany can be considered a multi-layered science, where the richness of plant genetic resources is
highly involved in processes of commodification, genetic transfer and improvement, which are
deeply rooted in the history of agriculture (Mooney 1980; Kloppenburg 1988). Seeds have always
played a role in human history, indeed “’much of the world’ economic and population growth since
the ‘Age of Discovery’ can be attributed to such plant transfers, rice, wheat and sugar cane to
America, maize and potatoes to Eurasia, and manioc to Africa […]” (Bronswimmer, 1991:6).
The seeds’ diversity propagated by farmers can be considered as well as backbone of cultural
practices and communities’ identity (Chaskey 2014; Yelemtu 2014): for instance, maize has
9
spiritual and cultural relevance in Mayan identity that overcomes strict economic terms and
meanings (Isakson 2009 as cited in Brezner Kerr, 2013).
Traditionally, seeds are on-farm preserved, passed through a process of selection and exchanged or
sold in informal markets scattered in a specific area responding to the agro-ecological needs and
farmers’ preferences: these practices are considered to have disseminated and cultivated agricultural
biodiversity across the world (Worede, 2010).
However, ‘seed security’ claims and boosting of agricultural productivity are changing these
consolidated forms, notably with the introduction of improved seeds and High-Yielding Varieties
(HYVs): governmental bodies are trying to maximise the use of HYVs in order to secure
agricultural products that are able to access the national and international market easily, such as
maize and wheat.
The 1930s witnessed the first working networks on the hybridisation of corn in the United States,
beginning the process of enclosure of biological commons (Kloppenburg 2004), along with a major
public involvement in breeding programs (Fowler and Mooney 1990). One crucial event is the
foundation of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico by
the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture ad the Rockefeller Foundation; this centre is still devoted to
the research on improved and certified seeds. Embodied in Norman Borlaug, director of the centre
and father of the research on HYVs, it can be recognised as the sparkling centre of the ‘Green
Revolution’, a phenomenon that took place in the 1960s and 1970s seeking to increase the
agricultural production in developing countries, mostly in South East Asia and Latin America. A
‘technicalisation’ of agriculture and top-down approaches were estimated valuable solutions to the
population pressure in developing countries and the need of food stocks-and as it will be argued,
these words are used also today-
10
“We have a pretty good idea of what is needed. In varying proportion according to particular
situations, the hungry countries need: increased quantities of fertilizer and other farm
chemicals, improved varieties of seeds, increased availability of water, added credit,
productive price policies, improved marketing facilities and expanded research and
education”(Freeman 19671, as cited in Ross 2002:439).
This momentum and approach that gathered many actors such as government, particularly the US,
research centres, foundation as the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation and private seed
companies, has been reputed by some authors as problematic. Dictated by Malthusian definitions of
developing countries’ issues of growing population, fails to tease out land access and political
exclusion of smallholders into agrarian decisions (Ross, 2002).
Furthermore, authors stress the biodiversity loss and the environmental challenges that this ‘onefits-all’ approach sparkled and did not solve, such as the consequences of the high use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides, needed by the new hybrid seeds, that in the long-term degraded the soil
and changed cropping systems to a uniform and fragile monocultures (Shiva, 1993). Hence, this
system is deemed to support scarcity and dependency in delicate agrarian context: “modern
technologies have contributed to scarcity by destroying existing sources of supply and creating
demands for new ones” (Yapa, 1993:262)
The term of dispossession and the utilization of the Marxian terms of enclosure have been utilized
by Kloppenburg to describe the recent developments of seed’s space of politics and economics.
Indeed, the commodification of seeds and a privatisation of plant genetic resource represents for
farmers a separation from their means of production and the erosion of farmers’ sovereignty over
1
Orville Freeman was the US Secretary of Agriculture and this remark appeared in the journal Foreign Affairs (Ross,
2012).
11
their sees is represented by the process of hybridization with the following opening of private
capital to profit from the seed sector (Kloppenburg 2010). Formalisation of seed sources and
distribution is considered, according to Kloppenburg (1988:23), “a forcible separation of the worker
from the land” and to an application of the industrial frame of mind into the agricultural system of
production.
Moreover, many authors focus on the capitalist control and ways of production of seeds and the
emerging market that seed companies have in developing countries and others (Kinchy, 2012, p25)
questions the growing importance in discourses and practices that lead to a ‘scienticization’, “the
transformation of political conflict […] into a debate among scientific experts, ostensibly separate
from the social context in which it unfolds”.
One other issue that has covered a lot of controversy and literature on the access and forms of seeds
is the so-called ‘biopiracy’ on the ‘traditional knowledge of the uses of plants’ (TKUP) and it
encompasses many issues surrounding the use of species and varieties developed by indigenous and
local groups in different agro-ecologies across the globe: ‘biopiracy’ can be defined as the
phenomenon of patenting plants and genetic resources by institutional and regulatory frameworks
of genetic material and variety of southern nations and cultures and the consequent affection to the
ownership of seeds (Mgbeoji, 2006). Even if it is not the major topic of this research, it is a relevant
and current issue in seed sovereignties and many grassroots organizations are focusing on it.
To conclude, “seed sovereignty, then, as part of food sovereignty, would entail people’s control
over and knowledge of seed types, production and distribution, and stands in opposition to the
increased concentration of seed ownership by the patenting of different varieties of seeds by
corporate actors” (Wittman 2009 in Brezner Kerr, 2013:870): this dissertation is aimed to give an
insight on the official claims over seed system in Ethiopia and if sovereignty issues are developed.
12
Governmentality of the state in the implementation of science and technology
The first two sections of this chapter have drew attention to the multiple issues surrounding the
access and control of agricultural inputs, and the rise of movements that stand against the
conventional food system and search for a ‘food justice’ that combines social and environmental
concerns (Alkon 2013). However, before proceeding with the discussion chapter, it is relevant to
the argument of this dissertation to frame the institutionalization of modern science in the state’s
functions. In chapter five these issues will be framed in the current attempt of the Ethiopian state to
‘modernise’ and ‘transform’ agriculture in order to reach the food security and to ‘end poverty’.
The state’s call for development coincides often with the institutionalization and the
professionalization of disciplines and technologies, considered to lay in the “more neutral calm of
science” (Escobar, 2011:45). As it will be uncovered, science and the spread of ‘developmental’
knowledge in ‘Third World’ countries after the World War II carry and propagate a science that is a
body of knowledge with political and hegemonic concerns.
According to Li (2007), one of the fundamental purposes of the government is the ‘will to improve’
the conditions of its population and to secure the “welfare of the population, the improvement of its
condition, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health, etc” (Foucault 1991 as cited Li, 2007: 275).
In this process of constant improvement, and transformation, complex networks of actors are
involved in heterogeneous practices that overwhelm socio-political and cultural relations:
“governance directs attention to the nature, problems, means, actions, manners, techniques and
objects by which actors place themselves under the control, guidance, sway and mastery of others,
or seek to place other actors, organizations, entities or events under their own say” (Rose, 1999:16).
13
We are here interested in the shaping of knowledge and practices that the policies and the control of
the state bring together and this process involves as well neoliberal solutions, such as the opening of
the market to new commodities and spaces that are endorsed by the state.
Experts of universities, agencies and other institutions are co-opted in the production of truth and
knowledge that is going to be “produced and transmitted under the control, dominant, if note
exclusive, of a few great political and economic apparatuses” (Foucault, 1980:131-132). Moreover,
‘truth’ can be defined as “a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation,
distribution, circulation and operation of statements” (Foucault, 1980:133): economic and political
influences constantly shape the knowledge discourse propagated by the state.
‘Seeing’ and ‘acting’ like a state implies a modernist ideology where an array of measurements,
schematic sets of knowledge and standardisations give a particular configuration of nature,
simplified in order to be controlled and manipulated, where complex schemata are hence not taken
into account (Scott, 1999).
In the state’s path for modernisation, science and technology have a role of ‘civilization’ driver, a
panacea helping to institute economic growth (Escobar, 2011). Technical fixes have a prominent
role in promoting prosperity: “Technology confers a sense of direction and significance. Theorized
as a sort of moral force that would operate by creating an ethics of innovation, yield and result.”
(Escobar, 2011:35-36).
Science, and in particular a science conforming to Western practices and traditions, has indeed been
perceived as a knowledge instructed by a criterion of rationality and system of production. Who
determine the scientific research trend? Authors indeed stress this point: “the constitution of the
scientific object of knowledge of inquiry is linked to the prevailing social and technical division of
labour” (Aronowitz, 1988:320).
14
The market plays a role as a strong and attractive force, indeed production and accessibility of new
knowledge is intrinsically with its marketability (Gibbons et.al, 1994). This is bounded with the
processes that Harvey describes as “accumulation by dispossession”, strengthened by the
commodification of natural resources such as land: the “the state, with its monopoly of violence and
definitions of legality, plays a crucial role in both backing and promoting these processes” (Harvey,
2003:145). This term derives from the Marxian concept of ‘primitive accumulation’ and it refers to
the process by which non-capitalist societies are transferred into a capitalist system and shaped by
it.
The Ethiopian state finds its paradigm in the ‘developmental state’ and at the first glance could not
be seen as a realisation of the neoliberal project, born to foster an economy with a minimal
intervention of the state. Indeed, it is possible to prove that commodification and commercialization
are backbones of the Ethiopian state policies and, at the same time, for historical and political
reasons, it owns a widespread control on the market and the privatisation process established after
the fall of the socialist regime2. This shape of developmental state is particularly highlighted in the
implementation of the developmental projects that cover issues such as health, agriculture,
infrastructure and economic growth: so it is argued that the state plays a dirigist and direct role in
order to guide the market in the goal of economic development (Mhone, 2003; Clark & Jung, 2002
as cited in Mbunda, 2013).
Defining dispossessions is always challenging and in this research we will try to tease out the
diverse actors. This dissertation will provide a critical understanding of discourses and policies that
are currently trying to boost the potentials of the formal seed sector.
2
The Ethiopian socialist regime, or Derg, was in power since 1974, after the ousting of the Emperor Haile Selassie, to
1987. The end of the regime coincided with a transformation of the country into a federal republic named ‘Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’, always ruled by the EPRDF (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front).
Despite the sponsored democratic elections, reports draws it an autocratic regime with ethnic and political prevailing of
politicians from Tigray and Ahmara regional states, in a country characterised by multiple ethnicities (Vaughan and
Trovoll, 2003; HRW 2012).
15
Chapter 3: Overview of the Ethiopian formal and informal systems
and the new networks operating in the country
In this chapter the overall conditions and nexuses of the seed system in Ethiopia will be examined
in a context that is currently shaped by traditional and more recent challenges. The geography of
seeds involves a diversified range of actors and networks shaped by multiple interests, and an
increasing attention from the government to enhance the yields to promote food security and future
exports.
As the fundamental importance of seeds as inputs is acknowledged, a wide range of cultural, sociopolitical and economical configurations is currently re-examined and influenced by recent policies
and partnerships. The aim of this section is to provide a description of the overall framework of the
informal and formal forms of use of seeds in Ethiopia and the stakeholders involved. Many issues
concerning local use and biodiversity are embedded in the utilisation of these two systems and they
will be shortly analysed, as they are considered essential in the discussion part of this dissertation.
The informal seed system in Ethiopia: the value of diversity
Seeds’ spaces reflect the diversity and the challenges that Ethiopia agriculture is facing nowadays.
The system is based on the production assured by the formal and informal, or traditional, seed
systems. The formal sector consists of ‘“improved seeds” (i.e. with better characteristics, e.g.,
higher yield than normal seeds) which are sold to farmers through farmer cooperatives, input
suppliers and other channels” (Alemu, 2010:12). On the other hand, farmers can get seeds through
informal exchange, production and markets, and more specifically saving and conserving the seeds
derived from their harvest to use in the following cropping season.
16
In the literature and among the stakeholders interviewed, the role of the ‘informal’ way of acquiring
seeds is widely recognized as the most important (Worede 2010; Alemu, 2011). In the country, the
informal system of collecting seeds varies from 80% of the seed utilisation, and in other cases it can
be more considerable: “during the meher3 growing season, it is estimated that at least 95% of all
seeds used were local seeds carried over previous harvest either by the farmers themselves […] or
by buying from preferred seed stock kept by other farmers in the same locality” (FAO, WB, 2008,
as cited in Alemu, 2011).
Worede, a prominent Ethiopian agronomist who has been working on the on-field preservation of
farmers’ traditional varieties, points out the relevance of these traditional methods: “the traditional
seed supply system is an important backup to overall agricultural crop production in a country. It is
mainly based on the farmers’ varieties with the exception of cases where the seed system depends
on improved or introduced crop varieties” (Worede, 2010:6). The work carried out by farmers is
reputed as a whole system of selection and trade, indeed “the development of Africa’s full array of
seed materials thus included generations of farmer community selections, a continuous importation
of seed types via regional trade and individuals’ selections from their own field and husbanded seed
storage” (McCann, 2005, as cited in McCann, 2011: 25).
Ethiopian farmers, as in all the African continent, developed over the centuries a wide appreciated
agricultural diversity through seeds’ selections adapted to human needs and natural vagaries of the
localities (McCann, 2005; Abay et.al, 2008; African Biodiversity Network, 2014): furthermore, the
“The two main crop seasons in Ethiopia are the belg and meher seasons which receive rainfall from February to June
and from June to October, respectively. The meher crop season is the main season and produces 90-95 percentage of
the nation’s total cereals output” (USDA, 2008:1).
3
17
Ethiopian plateau is considered one Vavilov4 centre of biodiversity in the world and one of the eight
world centres where agriculture had originated (Fowler and Mooney, 1990).
The Ethiopian agriculture is rich mostly in “four of the world’s widely grown food crops (wheat,
barley, sorghum, peas), in three of the world’s most important industrial crops (linseed, castor, and
cotton), in the world’s most important cash crop (coffee), in a number of food crops of regional or
local importance (teff, finger millet, cowpeas, lentil, enset, etc) and in a number of groups of forage
plants of world importance (clovers, lucerns, oats, etc.)” (Institute of Biodiversity Conservation,
2005:25). The wild weedy relatives are expected to be important in terms of potential agricultural
use in the future as well.
The so-called informal system has been able to develop a wide range of seeds types and the value of
biodiversity has been addressed in many works and studied on the field by Ethiopian scientists and
NGOs. For instance, this feature guarantees more security since farmers can choose between a wide
array of seeds depending on the particular ecological needs and indeed “such diversity provides
security for the farmer against diseases, pests, drought and other stresses” (Worede, Tesemma,
Feyissa, 2000:144). Moreover, cultivating different varieties and practicing the crop rotation
diminishes the risks: “since many pests are specific in particular plants, planting crops in different
seasons and different years causes large reductions in pest population” (Shiva, 1993:56).
Other authors stress the significance of informal seeds markets where the products are not labelled
and overstep the governmental control but they can be “ important for seed security (particularly in
Africa)”, especially “across period of instability, including drought, flood and, even, civil strife”
(Sperling and McGuire, 2009:121-122).
4
Nilokai Vavilov, a prominent Russian botanist working in the early XX century, found out the centres of origins of
cultivated plants, identifying China, India, Central Asia, the Near East, the Mediterranean, Ethiopia, southern Mexico
and Central America and the Andes in South America as the places where the greatest genetic diversity can be found
(Fowler and Mooney, 1990).
18
The formal seed system: features and main actors
The formal system has striking differences from the one just broadly analysed, in terms of actors
and institutions, number and types of crops developed and economical patterns. Despite the
significance of the informal sector, few papers examine in depth the extent of the Ethiopian
informal seed system and the main bulk of the literature is concentrated on the formal seed system,
formed mostly by research centres and commissioned papers. Analysing them is a source of
understanding the multiple stakeholders interacting in this spectrum.
In Ethiopia, the formal seed sector is instigated by public seed enterprises firstly established in the
late 1970s and other private enterprises entered the seed market after the 1990s’ reforms aimed to
enhance and instigate the market and the private initiative (Gebeyeh et.al, 2001). The Ethiopian
Seed Enterprise (ESE), which has now become a semi-autonomous body, is one of the most
remarkable among them and even after the 1990s era “the formal seed sector is still dominated by
the public sector”, but “private companies are now playing increasingly important roles” (Alemu,
2011:69). Recently, three regional public seed enterprises (Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations,
Nationalities and People’s Region) have been established as well.
Unusual in the informal system, one notable presence in the formal sector is the national research
centre depending on the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research
(EIAR), which “has been instrumental in crop variety development, seed multiplication and
distribution of new varieties to several users” (Meles et.al, 2009:1). The government has always
played a significant role in this sector crucial to agricultural productivity and “emphasis has been
given to agricultural research institutions, ESE, state farms, private farms and farmers as major
producers and suppliers of seeds” (Gebeyeh et.al, 2001.:3).
19
Cooperatives of farmers play also a certain and different function in the local distribution of inputs
such as certified seeds, and fertilizers, disseminating “a wide range portfolio of varieties for major
crops that are left orphaned by public seed enterprises and seed producers, having switched their
major orientation to maize and wheat, and economies of scales” (Tesfaye, et.al., 2012:2).
The bulk of the production of the formal sector is concentrated on ‘improved’ seeds (and hybrid
types) and the so-called ‘modern’ varieties that have been developed by the research centres spread
across the country, distributed and bred by private outgrowers and seed companies. Hybrid maize is
produced and sold as well by Pioneer Hi-Bred, a branch of the chemical multinational Dupont, (the
Zimbabwan Seed Co. is starting to gain a little percentage in the market as well) in a package
including high-yielding inputs such as chemical fertilizers, herbicides and training services to
farmers.
However, seeds produced by public companies are also Open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) or selfpollinated seeds and these can be saved by farmers for several seasons, and account for the majority
of the seed derived from the formal system: the primary OPV crop is wheat, but other important
open-pollinated varieties include teff5, barley, sorghum, open-pollinated maize, and pulses (Alemu,
2010:12). Through these different channels less types of seeds are produced and commercialized
compared to the informal system that works with locally adapted varieties and with less marketable
crops such as vegetable and pulses.
As reconstructed, several stakeholders are involved in seeds’ production and commercialization but
this sector covers just a little segment of the overall seed system: it is assumed that the extent varies
from 5% to 15% of the seed provision (Gebeyeh, 2001; Meles et.al., 2009; Alemu, 2010;).
5
Teff is an indigenous and staple crop of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands. Its flour constitutes the basis ingredient
of enjera, the national sourdough-risen flat-bread.
20
Ethiopian agriculture: planning future productivity in a historically food insecure
country
Agriculture represents the fist economic sector of the country and supports the 85% of the
population’s livelihoods, accounting for 46% of gross domestic product and 80% of export values
(Alemu, 2010).
Seeds, as the primary input of agriculture, have a great significance in this picture and an increased
agricultural productivity represents the most preferred path to the actualisation of the Ethiopian
‘Green Revolution’ and to transform the country in a middle income economy by 2025, seeking to
respect the overall target of at least 8.1% annual agricultural growth over the five-year period
(ATA, 2014).
Ethiopia has a long history in food production’s concerns and from the 1960s the main goal is to
increase yields through large-scale and integrated rural development projects through a supply of
crop varieties and inorganic fertilizers in order to fulfil the increasing demand of food and instigate
exports (Keeley and Scoones, 2000).
The linkage with the famine accidents is certainly strong. Indeed, famines have increasingly hit the
country in the XX century, during 1973-1974, 1984-1985, 1991 and 2002-2003 and especially the
one in the middle 1980s is considered one of the biggest famines in Africa, with up but probably
less one million victims. Food security is therefore considered a dramatic priority: “given Ethiopia’s
history of chronic food insecurity and recurrent catastrophic famines, it is hardly surprising that
food security has always featured strongly as a priority in successive Government development
plans and strategies” (Devereux and Bruce Guenther, 2007:5).
After the collapse of the socialist regime in 1990, also the new Federal Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia (FDRE hereafter) found in agriculture the bulk of the national economy. Focusing on
agriculture well fitted in the poverty alleviation’s goals, to “raise agricultural productivity and attain
21
food security” with a mixed strategy composed by the formula of Sasakawa 2000 Global 6 that
sought an increased production with fertilizers, improved seeds and pesticides. The opening of land
leases, to private companies looking for ‘unused spaces’, mostly concentrated in the lowlands, to
invest in food and bio-fuels production is also part of the overall growth strategy to attract
agricultural investments (Markakis, 2011).
Complex international networks are also involved in the country’s political and agricultural agenda:
federal and regional offices, NGOs, small national private companies and few international but
relevant ones such as Dupont.
The ‘Agricultural Transformation Agency’ (ATA) had been founded by the Ethiopian Ministry of
Agriculture and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in order to foster the transformation of
agriculture, focusing on bio-technology development and credit facilities for smallholders farmers
and pastoralists.
Ethiopia is currently involved in partnerships with international foundations and foreign aid
agencies. Seed policies and geographies result to be highly influenced by these collaborations:
“These include the Program for Africa’s Seed System (PASS), of the Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller
Foundations, and the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) of the World Bank (2009), specifically
targeting the Ethiopian seed system through technical support and investment” (Alemu, 2011:70).
The features and challenged of the Ethiopian seed system have been broadly analysed within a
framework that involves multiple actors and national environmental disputes. This chapter wanted
to give an overview of the sector and the critical review of it will be situated in the chapter five,
where findings from the fieldwork will be discussed and engaged with the theoretical background.
6
Sasakawa is an international NGO that focuses on grain productivity through the promotion of fertilisers, hybrid seeds
and an increased marketability of products. They receive financial support from AGRA as well (Brezner Kerr, 2013).
22
Chapter 4: Encountering seeds in a metropolis: methodology of
research
The original focus of this dissertation was on issues investigating the narratives and the approaches
of seed sovereignty in Ethiopia and the extent of partnerships involving international actors in the
definition of policies and new attitudes towards seed knowledge and control. The research
conducted in the country, however, was helpful to develop a wider range of questions and a deeper
approach to the food issue. It is related also to the state’s modernisation and developmental claims
and the role of science and technology in the current shaping of smallholders farmers’ agricultural
practices through agricultural growth and mechanization programs.
In the first section of this chapter, methods of this research will describe in the qualitative
component, while the second evaluate critically constraints and shortcoming of the research.
Description of research’s methods and rationale for selection
Fieldwork in the country run for more than one month in the capital Addis Ababa, between May
and June 2014 in order to collect the primary data for this dissertation; for many reasons and
constraints that will be explained, semi-structured interviews have been the most important source
of data gathering. Eventually, I draw from empirical data with a theoretical background studied
before arriving in the country; the results are discussed and interpreted together with the theory in
the next chapter.
Interviewing stakeholders and key informants has been the primary research methodology, used to
gather data about seed sources, management and policies: wider agrarian relations of Ethiopia were
therefore broadly addressed with mostly every stakeholder. There are many positive aspects in
23
choosing interviews as a method: set as a conversation more than an interrogation, the interviewed
can give in-depth accounts of experiences and allows the researchers to have a wider array of
questions to ask and also to shift depending on the situation and the attitude of the person in front
of us (Eyles, 1988, as cited in Valentine 1997). One strength of semi-structured interviews as part of
qualitative research is the important opportunity to “capture the multitude of subjects’ views of a
theme and to “picture a manifold and controversial human world” (Kvale, 1996:7), in contrast to the
quantitative approach which is aimed to collect a random or representative sample of data
(Longhurst, 2010).
Interviews are continuously shaped by expectations, social rules and balance while introducing and
asking the questions (Oppenheim, 1992, as cited in Kitchin and Tate, 2000), and building a rapport
with the interviewed while maintaining a neutral position is crucial (Kitchin and Tate, 2000). I’ve
found these notions particularly pertinent due to the wide range of people interviewed in Addis
Ababa, with various background and visions.
As explained before, interviews have been the bulk of the research methods, in the form of semistructured and non-structured interviews with NGOs, independent scientists, seed companies,
governmental and international officers (the detailed list is in the table) 7. The chosen informants
were considered to be some of the most illustrative ones, and interviewing them in their working
environment has been relevant to understand the background of seeds’ knowledge and how
practices at the formal level are propagated.
However, before and during the fieldwork, other people believed to be possible informants could
not be reached by phone or email or unpredictable events such as meetings and cancellations
prevented the interview to be done.
7
The table gives the insight of the interviews formally taken and signed by the informants. Informal interviews and
conversation are therefore not listed in this table.
24
Other informal and non-taped interviews have been undertaken in the capital with relevant experts
with a different academic background and organizations working on the ground with farmers: these
interviews have been positive and they touched many issues, mostly around informal seed
sovereignty, in order to understand the picture rather than collect detailed data and figures about
seeds security and policies. These conversations were more flexible in the way they proceeded and
not held in offices as the majority of interviews undertook.
Moreover, one structured interview has been done in an electronic form via email to a programme
officer of AGRA based in Nairobi.
Table 1. Institutional and civil society exponents and rationale for selection
Key level informants and
stakeholders
Ministry of Agriculture (MoA)
and governmental bodies (ATA)
Public seed companies
Number
Rationale for selection
2+1
Private seed companies
1
NGOs
3
Agricultural researchers and
scientists (EIAR, Institute of
Biodiversity)
International Organizations
1+1
International Partnerships
(AGRA) and Networks (ISSD)
1+1
Want to understand rationale of seeds’ approaches as an input at
national level.
The formal seed system is for the most part instigated by Ethiopia
Seed Enterprise and regional bodies.
There are few private companies in the country, especially
international, and they are focused on hybrid maize. Pioneer HiBred (Dupont company) was interviewed.
They have several projects on local knowledge and maintenance of
indigenous seeds. Interesting on seeing the linkages and perspective
of farmers’ use of seeds.
The Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research is the leading
academic institution that research and provides improved and
modern seeds.
FAO and the African Union are key actors in the formulation of
food security programs in African and they participate and fund
projects in Ethiopia correlating with seeds.
AGRA was founded in 2006 by Bill and Melinda Foundation and
the Rockfeller foundation and it provides financial and
infrastructural support to seeds-based activities. ISSD is a
collaboration between Dutch development bodies and Ethiopian
seed stakeholders.
2
3
The most considerable part of the research in Ethiopia has been devoted to the interviews’
development and implementation. During the time spent in the research site interviews were
undertaken variously and with questions differing from time to time, acknowledging the nature of
25
qualitative research for social studies which continually changes and shapes itself with “design
changes, reformulations of concepts and hypotheses” (Kvale, 1996:83). ‘Snowballing’ techniques
were used in order to “build up layers of contacts” (Valentine, 2005:117) and to get in touch with
members of internal or external organizations.
Other methods such as participants observations, questionnaires and focus group were initially
considered for a possible utilization in the capital -mostly for the focus group’s method and
participants observation- but their definition and feasibility were eventually considered not suitable
for the research environment. Getting in touch with people and moving in the city was usually timeconsuming and face-to-face interviews resulted to be the most helpful and straightforward mean to
get in touch with the issues in such a small amount of time.
The first interviews were important in their “pilot” and explorative nature and hypothesis and
associated codes testing, as Kvale reports (1996:97), “the interviewer follows up on the subject’s
answers and seeks new information about and new angles on the topic”.
All the formal interviews were recorded, taped and transcribed during my stay in Addis Ababa and
in the following period. Every informant has signed interview consent forms during formal
meetings and rights of interviewees were explained, most of all the possibility of keeping the
anonymity, in line with the ethical considerations of the School of Geosciences of the University of
Edinburgh.
Codes of analysis and themes associated formed the basis of interviews’ questions and they were
drew before and during the fieldwork’s preparation. Coding has been essential in driving the
interviews and questions were asked according to themes important for the thesis in order to
investigate “patterns that point to theoretical understating of social life” (Babbie, 2009:400), in this
26
case related to agrarian relations. Moreover, most secondary data are usually not recorded and
generated with the same research purpose (Kvale, 1996).
In particular, analysis of primary data in the transcriptions has been done according to four main
themes: informal and formal seed system (sources, actors, management); governmental policies
about seeds and agricultural issues including land tenure and investments; extent of international
partnerships and more general issues related to knowledge, the political ecology of the state and
pressure on natural resources. The last bulk of questions have been added during the fieldwork as
these themes were constantly showing up from the interviews’ transcriptions.
As interviews have been the core of the methodology, the research was enriched and supported also
by other methods that ensured a triangulation of the collected and the results. Triangulation it is
“based on convergence: when multiple sources provide similar findings their credibility is
considerably strengthened” (Knafl and Breitmayer, 1989, Krefting, 1990 as cited in Baxter and
Eyles, 1996:514).
Indeed, further data were collected by analysing local newspapers- such as ‘Capital’- magazines,
flyers and grey materials unpublished or not easily accessible to researcher working outside the
country. Albeit some of them were not related specifically to seeds, the information and the
attitudes towards agricultural investments and projects in Ethiopia and Africa were helpful to frame
single issues in a broader context of modernisation and development.
One last consideration has to be addressed in order to complete the methods employed and the
research environment’s description. I strongly consider and appreciate the importance of being in
the country for a period of more than one month: the interaction with stakeholders, and the stay in
Addis Ababa gave me insights of Ethiopia’s human geography’s changing patterns. In this
approach, ethnographic implications were therefore applied in a partial way. Even if the basic
features of ethnographic approach such as the task of studying a group of people in their own
27
environment for a long time period (Robson, 2011), and the following questions of involvement and
impact in the community are not adopted in my research (Davidson and Layers, 1994, as cited in
Robson, 2011), I consider the fieldnotes drew from observations during my travelling in the capital
and in the countryside as a primary source of understanding geographical patterns and changes that
are strongly correlated to my research.
Constraints and weaknesses of the chosen methods
If the first part of this chapter has been devoted to explain and justify the methods utilised,
challenges and constraints of them will be here examined, theoretically and empirically, through the
lens of the different levels of power, of knowledge, of interests-between the researcher and the
interviewed: every research has limitations and it is important to correctly illustrate them (Shon,
2012).
According to Kitchin and Tate (2000:35), validity of the research concerns the “soundness,
legitimacy and relevance of a research theory and its investigation” and in every research issues of
reliability of data arise. In this fieldwork in Ethiopia challenges related to the economical and
political positions of interviewed were encountered, mostly related to potential bias of people in
political and high-status positions in the government and international institutions.
Many authors stress the importance and the relevance of power relations during the fieldwork
experience (Kvale 1996; Valentine 1997;), and semi-structured interviews are not exempt from
various weak characteristics that can undermine the validity of the research. Often criticised this a
pitfall of the qualitative research in human geography, gender, political, class and race can play a
role but these positions have to be acknowledged: indeed, the “task is not to do away from these
28
things, but to know them and learn from them” (Shoenberger, 1992:218); “we have to recognise our
positionality and being reflexive” (Valentine, 2005:113).
Interviews with directors of governmental projects at various levels were held, along with people in
high positions in the African Union complex and they were all undertaken in their respective
offices.
With my status as a foreign graduate student, I’ve collected interviews that recognise the positions
of the stakeholders in the seed context. However, my questions may have partially been answered:
the entireness of the topic was likely to be neglected since it carried out politically relevant realities,
such as the resettlements and the work of the governmental Developmental Agents in the
countryside in promoting modern inputs. The governmental pressure was never discussed in a clear
way because of the political implications for the participants but sharp gestures and allusions
revealed an interest on my position and the possible consequences of the interviews, such as
anonymity and publishing. As well, informal conversation held outside the strict research context
gave me insights about the difficulties of interacting with the national bureaucracy and apparatus,
both for Ethiopian nationals and people from foreign countries.
Agriculture, as the most important economic sector in the country has a high strategic and political
nature embedded in itself. However, I state that exactly taking into account these pressures over the
sector and seeds as an input and acknowledging them, it is deeply relevant to the arguments of this
dissertation and to develop a critical analysis of discourses and policies around agrarian relations.
29
Chapter 5: An Ethiopian Green Revolution?
Agrarian themes embody a wide range of dynamics and conflicting interpretations of development
and modernity: seeds in Ethiopia result to be a profound marker of patterns of transformation,
power and knowledge.
The multiple interviews resulted in an in-depth analysis of the importance of seeds and the great
momentum that agriculture is encountering in Ethiopia. The cross-cutting issues overcome strict
interpretations of seeds’ forms of use and underscore political claims seeking to strengthen the
formal seed system in order to achieve an accelerated growth of agricultural productivity. This is
often linked to the mainstream paradigm of modernisation of agriculture and market access as a
solid solution to poverty. These interpretations are the common ground for the governmental and
transnational rationales and in this chapter they will be problematized in many aspects that
overcome statistical and simplistic representations of agrarian relations, but are linked also to the
food sovereignty approach investigated.
The first sub-chapter discusses one of the main findings in which the ‘will’ to secure a strong and
controlled formal seed system is addressed with the marketization of peasants’ production to reduce
poverty, acknowledging that the informal seed system is still crucial in Ethiopia. Furthermore,
actors-networks of this process will be critically analysed in their commitments and environmental
issues such as the biodiversity spectrum that this model could entail are addressed, as also many
stakeholders pointed out. The second section is dedicated to empirically contextualize the role of
the state in the agricultural patterns and developmental practices, seeking to reach a capitalist mode
of production through technology transfers and a Green Revolution model. The decentralised
structures of the state permit the spread of this approach that has roots in the highlands hegemony in
30
the Ethiopian lowlands. Finally, the last sub-chapter is dedicated to summarize these approaches
that are undermining the cultural, political and agrarian sovereignty of peasants, in respect to the
methods adopted and the sharpening of the representation of farmers as essentially economic
agents.
Strengthening the formal seed system in an agro-ecological diverse country: which way
forward?
The history of the seed of Zea mays (maize) is a versatile mean to study and analyse the realm of
official rationales towards seed security and sovereignty and the formal seed system’s nexuses. As
introduced before, interviews drew important information about the nature of the extent of the
governmental policies aiming to co-opt actors and partnerships to increase the role of the formal
seed system in the country. The third chapter tackling the seed system explains that the formal
sector actually covers around the 10% of the seed demand and leaves the other supply system to the
informal markets or exchanges of local varieties between farmers as it was explained in the third
chapter.
The bek’olo (maize in amharic) is embedded in local and international actors’ strategies and
traverses projects and investments that are a model of the transformation of the agriculture sought
by high-level political and economical sectors. In Ethiopia, this crop has evolved from being
cultivated in the gardens in a narrow niche between sorghum and wheat to a crop that received
attention from commercial seed companies, research centres and international organization such as
USAID, via newly established scientific institutions after the 1950s. Maize has been increasingly
preferred by smallholders for its adaptability and expediency that provided higher yields in familiar
plots stressed by the population growth and the land reform (McCann, 2005).
31
Evidence of the striking adoption of hybrid maize was clear and consistent in the interviews’
sessions. Many participants pointed out the rationales of farmers of choosing this crop for their field
and the concentration of private capital in the profitable market of improved seeds: “the government
is also supporting these technologies and also the research centres are releasing hybrids every year.
The farmers are benefitting from the corn technology [emphasis mine] now” (private seed company
exponent, 2014, personal communication). Others pointed out the relation based on dependency
(intended as positive and controversial at the same time): “ […] the producers prefer the hybrid.
They know that the farmers will come back to buy them” (FAO director, 2014, personal
communication).
Farmers can encounter pressure to adopt hybrid maize in order to increase the yields and this was
clearly acknowledged in few conversations: “we discussed with farmer: we hate this hybrid maize
but there is a lot of coercion but they know that if they grow it they will get a bigger yield, whether
is good or not (NGO exponent, 2014, personal communication). One exponent of one other NGO
working in projects seeking to restore the traditional farming knowledge, expressed the co-optation
of farmers in these ‘sustainable value chains’ supported by the central agricultural agencies: “one
(reason to adopt the HYVs) is the big push from the government itself. It convinces that the seeds
that farmers have are not productive and to have new varieties […]. What they are saying is very
easy, “we give you the improved seeds, we help you with chemicals, methodologies for pest,
harvesting. If you want to value chains we have different techniques” (NGO1, 2014, personal
communication).
These techniques such as the commodification of seeds and the reliance on external inputs bear
challenges in a diverse agro-ecological country and undermine the control of the total productivity
of farmers: as affirmed by Yelemtu (2014:149), not only the yielding figures must be considered
32
but also the seed diversity which “implies accessing alternative seeds to ensure sustainable
production in the context of a fragile environment and diverse geographical contexts”.
Hybrid maize has been recently promoted by the Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Program
(AMSAP), “a collaboration between USAID, DuPont Pioneer and smallholders farmers”, seeking
to change the traditional system on the belief that “yield could be doubled if farmers adopt higher
quality inputs and proven agronomy best practices” (AGP, 2013). This project holds the traits
common to many programs dealing with agriculture in developing countries: technology transfer to
small holders farmers, increasing the productivity through inputs and a commercialisation of the
tradable crops. These measures were widely adopted by the Green Revolution: “providing poor
countries with rigid technological packages loaded with those factors responsible for the high
agricultural yields in wealthy countries: genetically, engineered seed, chemical fertilizers,
mechanization and so forth” (Warman, 2003:223).
While some factors have changed from the 1960s, such as the increasing presence of private seed
companies and research more centred on local ecosystem and participatory approaches, these
models are still often found in the discourses of food security and poverty reduction.
AGRA embodies one of the most relevant examples of international partnerships seeking to
promote market solutions to the average African farmer funding local entrepreneurs. AGRA is
interested in investing in quality seeds and “the seed is now being produced by private, profitable
seed companies and distributed through a network of local, rural enterprises dealing in agricultural
inputs- a model which holds the promise of sustainability” (AGRA, 2014:3). Ethiopia is also one of
the target countries of the “New Alliance of Food Security and Nutrition”, an US-lead program,
arisen from a G8 engagement in 2008, and it “is a shared commitment to achieve sustained and
inclusive agricultural growth and raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years”.
One formal interview with AGRA conducted via email clearly showed that the Green Revolution
constitutes an example to be replicated: “If farmers are to be pulled out of this quagmire adopting
33
the formal seed sector is the way to go because this is what has transformed agriculture in many
countries in the developed world and has also led to attainment of a Green Revolution in developing
countries of Asia and Latin America” (2014, personal communication).
The technical and economic definition of the ‘hunger’ problem worldwide and the increasing use of
synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, credits and markets proposed as solutions for the poverty of
smallholder farmers (WB, 2007), collides with the weak promises of increasing yields that could
resist in “soil and water degradation, increased global warming and eroded biodiversity” (Watson,
2008, as cited in Jarosz, 2012:195). Indeed, the Green Revolution is based “too much on
productivity than sustainability, stability and multiple outputs” (Ruben, 2005, as cited in Yelemtu,
2014).
Liberalizing the seed industry and promoting improved and ‘miraculous’ modern seeds have
challenging rationales and conditions. According to Pearse (1980), the dependence of external
inputs is crucial in this process and he stresses the requirement of greater inputs that means a deeper
relation with the economic urban macrocosm system and technical services, suppliers and
institutions providing credits: this process in Asian countries has resulted in an increased economic
polarization of rural populations.
Exposing farmers to packages that propose increased yields, and providing market access for
millions of people as a medium to reduce poverty may not tackle the roots of poverty and
malnutrition and this could lead in deepening of inequalities and formulas that do not provide
radical solutions to the issues (Jarosz, 2012).
This official trend, boosted from the government and international agents find controversies in
environmental terms as well. People interviewed, among them many NGOs exponents and
agricultural scientists, affirmed the urgency of loss of biodiversity due to an extension of the formal
seed system. Threats to agro-biodiversity are expressed as well by the Institute of Biodiversity
34
Conservation in Addis Ababa (2005, p35): “agricultural intensification is the major cause of loss of
agricultural biodiversity. This occurs through the replacement of traditional crop varieties with
high-yielding varieties that are dependent on high levels of agricultural inputs”.
The country finds itself in a difficult position where biodiversity and local landraces developed and
used by farmers as a source of seed security are set and contested in an ‘industrialization’ and
‘modernization’ process of the sector: a shift to an intensive agriculture is deemed critically by
some Ethiopian exponents, mostly considering the value of biodiversity. This delicate momentum is
questioned and relatively simply described: “yes, we can integrate them (traditional varieties). They
have lower yields but they can stand the changes and attacks, they are more tolerant. But at the
same time we are trying to increase the productivity because the population is growing” (Scientific
Expert, 2014, personal communication). Interviewing NGOs working to sustain smallholders
farming system with a stronger ‘indigenous’ approach lead to the similar conclusion that farmers
are losing varieties of traditional seeds: for instance, one reported that one community in Oromia
Region cropped 19 varieties of barley and now, after 20 years, they have just five varieties.
The adaptation of Ethiopia’s agriculture in the realm of ‘progressive’ and ‘modern’ countries
epitomises the inner contradictions and pitfalls of modern intensive agriculture and its “preference
is to alter, (or homogenize) local soils and moisture by using inorganic fertilisers, irrigation,
pesticides, and so on, to suit improved cultivars, and to manipulate local ecologies to accommodate
seeds developed for use across a geographic spectrum” (McCann, 2005:18).
Modern conventional agriculture is reputedly unsustainable from many points of views, including
the risks of increasing the land production dedicated to less and less crops and the following risks
that a monoculture could provoke on the genetic resources (Sutton and Anderson, 2010; Bellon
2004). An implantation of the modern agricultural model, often characterised by ‘one-size-fits-all’,
35
risks to overcome the local geographies of seeds and of rural livelihood, sharpening “the utilitarian
commercial and fiscal logic” of the state (Scott, 1998:309).
Authors working in Ethiopia question the adaptability of this hybrid vigour in the long-term and the
general trend to endorse HYVs requiring inputs and complex nexuses. Indeed, “it seems that many
African governments are increasingly adapting the idea of industrialization for economic growth
and development by applying technology-based and market-oriented agricultural systems.
However, agriculture in Africa is often characterized by smallholder farming which arguably is not
suitable for growing surplus tradable cash crops” (Netting, 1993, as cited in Yelemtu, 2014:63).
Agricultural areas leased to farmers are indeed scattered in small plots of usually 1 hectares in the
highlands (but there are cases of 0.5 and 0.25 hectares per family): participants in the interviews
tease out the delicate and challenging issue of land shortage that Ethiopia is facing in the last
decades after the land reform during the Derg regime.
While farmers have developed forms of use of HYVs in their plots depending on the food they
desire and developing a delicate coexistence of both the two seed systems, reducing the diversity of
seeds as options could dramatically endanger the seed security of peasants and being traduced in an
erosion of their livelihoods. Indeed, ethnographic research showed how usually farmers tend to
discredit the new varieties that have not been developed in the locality and are more unpredictable:
indeed, the local varieties, adapted to the local agro-ecological needs, raise more secure and stable
yields (Yelemtu, 2014).
To conclude, the formal seed system in Ethiopia still covers a small percentage in the national
seeds’ supply and it provides farmers with a little amount of crop variety compared to the informal
system. However, the discourses of the networks are committed and well-funded: smallholders
farmers will become more and more the target of policies intended to increase the yields and the
HYVs will be grown in use and financial support. The genetic resources of the country and the
36
traditional farming system, characterized by a multitude of social, economic and ecological
components that lead to a whole system are likely to be underestimated.
Capital and technology discourse in Ethiopian policies: a wider spectrum on the
poverty reduction solution trough investment in ‘modern’ agriculture
The topic tackled in this sub-chapter is highly correlated to the themes encountered in the previous
one: findings on the role of the government and the importance of the state in the shaping of
agriculture into a modern and efficient system are exercised in a set of practices and discourses that
only the fieldwork could provide in a deeper sense. The arguments developed by the participants,
their positionality in the ethnic and economic context expressed the high concentration of political
pressure in this sector. During my work I gradually acknowledged the influence of the government
in shaping the agrarian relations and the extent of the control over the system, grasping as well
more or less subtle allusions: policy documents and other informal but substantial reports are
relevant in the development of my argument.
Subsistence agriculture as the predominant rural livelihood in Ethiopia is tackled in the national
goals of growth and eradication of poverty and dependence on food aid (MoFED, 2010). This path
is suggested by neoliberal formulas that have been partially covered and, with a great effort in the
development and the aid arena, the government is committed to foster an ‘accelerated’ economic
growth.
Stakeholders from the governmental apparatus and other civil society exponents stressed the
commitment of the government into the application of modernization’s claims and to strengthen
food security in the country: “there is a huge push from the government to meet food security and
now we have a rapidly expanding urban population and we have little resources to expand as an
37
economy. So they want agricultural production for both food security and for developing agroindustries, And they want uniform types which they know they can process and produce” (NGO,
2014, personal communication).
One of the most consistent results is the will to push, from one hand, the canalisations of energies
and investments in agriculture by sustaining private companies, and on the other hand, to maintain a
by the state that seeks to control regulatory tools to the marketization of smallholder agriculture.
The Ethiopian government is interested in transforming the economy and premises of rationality
embedded in the adoption of technology and export-oriented market policies have, however, a
significance that encompass many issues and seek to expand the control of the state over the
periphery.
Scholars have affirmed that the place of the national state in the economic arena is no longer having
a crucial role, while multinational corporations and other transnational bodies would hold efficient
tools to shape economic development and regulatory mechanisms (O’Brien, 1992, as cited in
Glassman and Samatar, 1997). These have to be acknowledged, but,
on the other hand, the
capitalist states in the periphery and their key institutions have to be examined in depth as the part
of capitalist development and its (in)efficient path to economic development (Glassman and
Samatar, 1997).
Modernity is constantly cited in the recent Ethiopian national plans, the most relevant are the Plan
for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), compiled in 2006, the
Ethiopia’s Agricultural Sector Policy and Investment Framework (PIF), written in 2009 and valid
from 2010 to 2020 and correlated to the Growth and Transformation Plan of 2010/2011 and
2014/2015. Premises of the current trends can be found in the PASDEP, synthetizing the goals of
the plan: the eradication of poverty, the improvement of people’s livelihood and the imperative to
have an accelerated and sustained economic growth (MoFED, 2006).
38
The government will still play a role as a ‘facilitator and gap filler to overcome initial barriers’ in
the shift to higher-value crops’ adoption. As well, “farmers and pastoralists will be encourage to
focus on agricultural activities where they have the best comparative advantages” (MoFED,
2006:68). These concepts are replicated in the PIF maybe in a lighter way but the push to a
profitability is redundant: the agricultural packages should “close the gap between farmers and the
majority, whose productivity potential is far below potential” (MoA, 2010:17).
Market and commercialisation formulas are the backbone of the Ethiopian strategy to overcome the
traditional farming system, often portrayed as regressive and unsustainable; this strategy fits into
the definition of neoliberalism as “something specific, namely a reengineering and redeployment
(not dismantling) of the state, among other things, both to support commodification (the extension
of the market in all spheres) […]” (Warquant, 2012, as cited in Mosse, 2014:237).
Interviewees from FAO, MoA and other institutional entities appealed to the commercialisation and
the easing of investments’ condition; however, these claims have been criticized also by some
stakeholders challenging the adoption of ideas typical to agri-business corporations, where the
feeding of the people is becoming more and more in the hands of private companies that follow
their profit interests (Agricultural Scientist, 2014, personal communication).
Farmers seem to be the final objectives of these trend and they are advocated as the main actors of
change: however, this change is likely to be produced by a logics of ‘produce and perish’ and
peasants are aimed to increase production and income in the traditional subsector by rationalising
its insertion into the market economy” (Escobar, 2011:157). This concept holds the premises of the
market as solution to structural problems, often with a process of simplification of the reality and a
dispossession of farmers’ control over their political and ecological resources.
39
Business, as activities and organizations dealing with commerce and trade, indeed, is seen as a
development agent and “a vibrant private sector with well functioning markets is seen as the sine
qua non of a properly developing economy” (Blowfield and Dolan, 2014).
In this sense, the bulk of interviews with formal stakeholders collected the official stance of this
tendency that follows a neoliberal paradigm where new markets are created and strengthened. It is
worthy to mention the journey of neoliberalism and the deliberate contraction of markets: “
neoliberalism’s ascendency has been associated with the political construction of markets, coupled
with the deliberate extension of competitive logics and privatized management into hitherto
relatively socialized spaces” (Peck and Tickell, 2002:395). Neoliberal policies have been
established in the 1990s, allowing the private sector to operate in grain marketing in a free market
environment and a general privatization of the economy in order to generate revenues required for
financing development activities undertaken by the government (Demessie, 2008). However, this
process is argued to have benefited few companies with access to the ruling party resulting in
acquiring special deals, access to resources, relief form financial and regulatory burdens8 (Kebbede,
2004, as cited in Demissie, 2008:518).
However, the market solutions sought by the government to promote economic development can be
critical to the Ethiopian farmers as they result in an entering in the global neoliberal food project
criticised by Friedmann (1993), and promote a subjection of “conditions of production to global
competition, and where previously customary or non-monetary social arrangements had prevailed,
money and market relations will increasingly regulate the form of agricultural production” (Makki,
2012:99).
8
Particularly involved in this process are two economic conglomerates, EFFORT (Endowment Fund for the
Rehabilitation of Tigray) and MIDROC (Mohammed International Development Research and Organization
Companies). According to Hansson (as cited in Demessie, 2008), these two companies benefitted in a substantial way
during the privatization process of the early 1990s. MIDROC, in particular, owned by the Saudi-Ethiopian
Businessman Sheik Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi, presents a blurry array of solutions to poverty mixing
philanthropy
and
business
as
usual:
it
is
worthy
to
take
a
look
at
the
website
http://www.sheikhmohammedalamoudi.info/
40
While the issue of federal state control in the lowlands is not the main concern of this dissertation, I
argue, however, that it is worthy to mention it as a clear and, in certain ways, extreme example of
the state pressure in the agricultural domain.
In its journey towards modernity, the capital follows the uneven historical dynamics of state
formation of Ethiopia, in a centre-periphery structure where the central state of Addis Ababa has
developed a federal but still crucially centralised political force that can still access villages
structures (Slater, 1989; Hirsh, 1990 as cited in Glassman and Samatar, 2005). Nevertheless federal
reform had taken place in the 1990s, the historical hegemony of the highlands population in the
lowlands territories, inhabited to the pastoralist and more nomadic ethnicities, finds patterns of
continuity still today and it is controversially intertwined with agrarian relations of sovereignty that
are deemed necessary to be analysed. These geographical divisions of these two entities served as
well as a socio-cultural and as an administrative divide, deemed difficult by the central Abyssinian
power to impose a stable tributary system in a zone considered plundered and disordered (Vaughan
and Tronvoll, 2003; Markakis 2011;Makki, 2012).
From the interviews, I could extract rationales and perceptions on these old and contemporary
issues and exploring the discourse on the agricultural productivity of the Ethiopian lowlands, which
are mostly located in the Gambella and Benishangul-Gumaz Regional States in the south-western
parts of the country, disclosed the interpretations of these regions as terra nullius, and ‘virgin’ lands
to be devoted to the capitalist expansion of commodified agriculture. Investors are deemed to
develop the high potential of these lands and international and national companies are given leases
from thirty to ninety years, with low fees and, according to Markaris (2011:261), “although much of
the investment in agri-business is planned for food production, it is not food that local people eat or
can afford to buy; it is for export” and therefore, the kind of agriculture suitable here is “large-scale
mechanized agriculture that requires considerable outlays of capital” and crops. The government
41
proposes a win-win strategy to overcome food insecurity and to increase productivity through
resettlement programs where local communities are scattered in different new villages created to
deliver the poor from vulnerability, resulting in an ‘invisibilization’ process and social and
environmental injustices (Hammond, 2008).
These findings suggest the more threaten status quo of the traditional cultivators and pastoralists
who “live on the margin of the society, and are least able to defend their rights against the combined
weight of the state and foreign capital” (Markaris, 2011). The interviews with members of the Input
Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture were among the most difficult to do, for the far from
neutral political stakes and the suspicious attitude of my interviewees toward my academic position
(they thought I was a journalist and when I used the terms ‘social consequences’ they understood
only as displacement).
In order to understand the nature of the state pressure on this area, one document from the
Agricultural Investment Agency of MoA here becomes precious and strikingly revealing about the
call for agricultural investments and the dubious win-win strategy that could benefit the local
communities and the investors’ business. The line between marketization of the lands and local
rural development is blurry, but the solution sounds contradicting: “aside from helping residents of
the locality be beneficiaries of socioeconomic services and scientific technologies, such investment
putting the vast arable land into effective use helps in establishing a system that augments the
economic benefits the country obtains” (MoA, na.). Technology and market are presented as
‘poverty reduction’ measures and development incentives to the local communities, in an
challenging equation where “poverty reduction is unambiguously linked to the project of “market
rule” which enlists the state in the privatization of goods and the individualization of the
entrepreneurial, or consumer, citizen” (Drainville, 1995, as cited in McMicheal, 2006:472): “the
land transfer work for agricultural investment activity is crucial in transferring technology to the
42
people, creating job opportunities, expanding infrastructural facilities, bolstering other socioeconomic services, ensuring food securities and creating a better like style to the people” (MoA,
idib.). However, this magic formula does not allow blaming voices: “if there are inconveniences,
they pale in light of the benefits to be derived. So give not ear to doomsayer bloggers”. This last
striking phrase taken from a ministerial database shows the pressure on journalists and critical
voices: reports of Human Rights Watch describes at length violations of freedom measures and
recently the arrest of seven bloggers and three journalists that have been accused of “destabilising
the nation” was on the news. (HRW, 2010; The Guardian, 2014).
Citing Araghi’s notions of agrarian ‘national rural differentiation’ and ‘rural displacement at the
world scale’ (Araghi, 2005 as cited in Makki, 2012), the Ethiopian state is profoundly challenging
the peasants’ livelihoods of both the geographical entities of the country with an increase of the
neoliberal marketization of smallholders in the highlands and a dispossession though enclosures in
the lowlands, where agricultural investment “is a policy promoted by the government and space for
any opposition to government policy is extremely restricted” (Lavers, 2012:816).
Seeds of knowledge and sovereignty
As we have seen, the use of terms of ‘revolution’, ‘progress’, ‘modernity’ are widely used in the
agricultural policies and development projects and encompass issues that risk not to be mentioned
or properly taken into account. Augmenting the agricultural production and fostering policies to
attract investment encounter realities dealing with the representation of peasants and their
knowledge. In this last section, findings over sovereignty of Ethiopian farmers in this process are
critically analysed, along with radical alternatives to this approach.
43
There is a high attention and push towards the transfers of technology and skills to the agricultural
sector that seems to transfer, HYVs are boosted in a widening neoliberal paradigm, in fact:
“Neoliberal development is based on certain premises regarding the nature of society, most
centrally the notion that, however complex social relations might be, there exists an immanent
market-like essence to each individual” (Harrison, 2005:1311).
One of the most striking and consistent findings is the tale of the “progressive farmer” as a
cornerstone in the official discourses: the farmers that embrace modern varieties and the package of
technology and knowledge that seem to be neutrally transferred have a positive aura for taking back
the ‘backwardness’ of the traditional farming knowledge. Moreover, when asked about the role of
the traditional knowledge, participants from the formal group revealed the terms of involving the
farmers in terms that transpired few decisional voice and role. Other voices explained how the
governmental Developmental Agents (DAs), established in several woreda (village) and aimed to
provide farmers with modern practices and technology, often give special assistance to model
farmers that are prompt on use the inputs offered (and are mostly members of the ruling party); in
other occasions they pressure farmers to adopt some interventions that resulted in crop failures and
undermined the farmers’ flexibility of using different varieties. As well, promoting HYV with their
market promises is promoting a certain way of thinking biodiversity and, according to Shiva (1993),
of dismantling less productive seeds as ‘weeds’.
The ‘ecumenical’ character of the state, as the provider of ‘skills’ to farmers and the handler of the
tools to develop a sustainable increasing of productivity is challenging and redundant in the terms
that could be part of a struggle between scientific knowledge and the local and practical body of
knowledge. This struggle is embedded in political relations, in fact: “taylorism and scientific
agriculture are not just strategies of production, but also strategies of control and appropriation”
(Scott, p311). Moreover, Escobar warns against the ‘uneven geographies of poverty and
44
livelihoods’ that resulted from a powerful phenomenon such as the Green Revolution in the 1960s:
one proof is “the wholesale dismantling of ancient system of irrigation and rice cultivation in Bali
in the name of modern development” (Escobar, 2011:xvii).
This process is actually translated in these words by a member of an Ethiopian NGO member: “But,
what they are doing is basically changing and displacing this knowledge. Therefore, the farmers
will loose their experience, their practices: this is what is happening now. This is unfortunately
supported by the government, as they do not understand what is happening. At the same time
governments are also concerned that everybody have food. If you are the government you have to
feed everybody. Their story is a very simple one” (NGO1, 2014, personal communication). Again,
‘seeing’ like a state is unfolded in truth and knowledge practices that encompass the control sought
by the government: modern science is one of the state’s geographies of power and control
(Foucault, in Peet and Hartckich, 2009).
Part of my argument in the delicate food sovereignty debate wants to question the terms of
inclusion of peasants in the modernity more the whole concept of ‘modernity’, or, as stated by
McMicheal (2006: 478-479), “a privatized modernity that erases local knowledge is the modernity
in question. La Via Campesina, indeed, is “engaged in building different concepts of modernity
from their own, alternative and deeply rooted, traditions” (Desmarais, 110). This could be a huge
step forward the seeing the globalisation as a ‘capitalist modernity’, a paradigm translated in the
policies and discourses analysed in the country.
Moreover, the threatening of seeds and food sovereignty of Ethiopian farming communities is still
at a beginning stage, but the premises of the state policies that have been analysed reveal a critical
inclusion in the market.
Rural people may not refuse an inclusion per se, but they might reject the “terms of their inclusion
in new economies, terms that increase the gap between rich and poor people and make the poor
45
more vulnerable” (Li, 2009). Indeed, as described by Yelemtu (2014), farmers tend to adopt modern
inputs in a complex way and do not seek just income but also the yielding security of the traditional
seeds that are bounded culturally with the human and natural environment. The treating of
agriculture as a merely productive system dismantles the complex and multifunctional system of
production of peasant agriculture, where ecological resources are used following logics that
overstep the marketability of agricultural products.
46
Chapter 6: Conclusion
The discourses and the positions analysed unravel a powerful paradigm of modernity carried out by
the state and the directness of its promises of prosperity. As I have retraced, the approach of
institutional apparatuses provide a challenging interpretation of modernity, dictated by simplifying
resolutions that try to emulate the Green Revolution of the 1960s.
Entering the realm of ‘modern’ countries involves a greater access to market, technologies and
services, and this is particularly true for the ‘poor small farmers of Africa’, target of national and
international programs. Solutions to development are held in promises of capitalist ‘accumulation
by dispossession’, where a stronger participation of private (and few and controlled) enterprises,
‘injections’ of investments and a wider use of uniform seed varieties undermine the complex
multifunctional system of the peasants’ livelihoods. The Ethiopian state organises actors and
resources to enhance agricultural production and it directs them into a formal seed system that
currently covers a minor space in the seed supply system and have structural weaknesses.
The modernisation theory, critically defined as a ‘secular salvation theory’ (Nandy, 1986, as cited in
Banuri, 1987), evokes agriculture as a system where productivity and success are distanced from
farmers’ resources and skills. This paradigm evokes a superiority of modern varieties, miraculous to
the income of the farmers and the country. The marketability of the inputs provided by farmers is
deemed the most important characteristic and it encounters few critiques by national states,
becoming the panacea of developing countries’ problems.
Ethiopian farmers have developed over the centuries a significant agro-biodiversity that is
sustaining the rural livelihoods, trough seeds adapted to the many agro-ecologies of the country.
47
However, the materials analysed reveals a huge concentration of power and control in the
agricultural domain, where voices working on agro-ecological systems of production are being
heard but cover a substantial minor place. The policies documents and the voices that I have
collected develop an attitude that reveals a faith in HYVs and the market that is shaping the seed
and food system. The paradigm of maize and the process of hybridisation are the symbols of this
transformation: the uniform varieties bred by the seed companies and the agricultural research are
more controllable by the state and suitable to be destined in the national and international grain
markets. As well, the dependency on modern inputs creates conditions to increase the role of the
private and the scientific control.
The ‘accelerated’ economic growth sought by the Ethiopian state develops a geography of pressure
and control over the fields that neglects the entireness and the multiple forms of use of seeds in their
ecological and cultural importance that overtakes the statistics of yields productivity. Findings
suggest a discrepancy of interests and representation of rural development between the government
and farmers and, as provided by the ethnographic research of Yelemtu (2014), the blurry and
politicised line of ‘poverty reduction’ often clashes with farmers’ visions: while government wants
to increase the productivity and reach the export market, farmers’ understanding of agricultural
inputs is multifunctional and multi-layered in concerns over seed security and sovereignty. The
power embedded in the formal seeds and the promotion of ‘Green Revolutions’ break up the seed
sovereignty of peasants, whom voices are rarely taken into account, or on who external pressure are
imposed.
A culturally relevance is also held in this process: farmers are increasingly being the target of
policies and developments that are aiming to a shift of the farming system and a foster of
industrialisation that finally overcomes the ‘archaic’ and ‘backward’ knowledge on seeds. Indeed, I
argue that the informal seed systems are the true richness of the country. This quote is here
48
appropriate: “the landraces of peasants farmers represent improved materials. They embody the
thoughts, insights, inventiveness and hard work of farmers past and present” (Fowler and Mooney,
1990:145).
I argue that a radical ‘revolution’ in the planning of future agriculture passes through other models
and has to take a step forward from the logics that I have shown in the previous paragraphs. As
analysed at the beginning of this dissertation, there are an increasingly wider literatures and global
movements stressing the importance of agro-ecological farming and agricultural intensification
through a decreasing of the reliance on chemical fertilisers. Future agricultural patterns should
embody just and democratic participation of peasants and “effectively represent their members,
whether they are farmers, fishers, pastoralists, women, consumers or indigenous people” (Jarozs
2012: 197).
Finally, this dissertation is based on short researches undertaken in the capital because partly of the
difficulties to get in touch with local organisations and realities from abroad. For this reason, I
concentrated my topic on the rationales behind the modernisation of agriculture and the results are
concentrated on the challenging features of the formal seed sector, which reveal new patterns of
dependency. These limits could be the starting points of new researches on the seed and food
sovereignty conditions of Ethiopian farmers, concentrating over a long period research in situ and
locally specific.
49
Appendix
Annex I: interview transcript I
Interview transcript: Scientific Expert (07/06/2014), 11 am at Intercontinental
Hotel
Me: so, it is almost the end of the journey and I’ve spoken to many people, mostly talking about
formal seed format. What is the extent in your opinion the extent of the formal seed system and if
they are combined and farmers use both.
B: as you said we have formal and informal system. But the formal is not so strong because in the
past we had just one seed enterprise at the national level and mainly focused on few crops such as
hybrid maize and they don’t do much to address other crops such as barley, sorghum, pulses, oil
crops. All of these are not developed by these companies. So there is a shortage of certified seeds in
the country. So in some regions the informal seed system is doing the job for some crops which are
not under the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise. So I think they supply the 10% of the demand of seeds, the
rest is supplied in different systems, exchange, recycling the seeds. I think now everybody is
realizing that the formal seed system has not the capacity to address all the seed issue so different
institutes are involved in the formal. EIAR is a source of technology, all types of technology in
agriculture, crops, livestock, soil, forestry.
You know, in the seed system there are different classes, breeders’ seeds, basic, pre-basic… we are
fully responsible for the production of breeder’ seeds. So after that it has to be multiplied: basic,
pre-basic, certified. That is takes time and there is the gap to… we organized farmers near our
research centres and we supplied seeds we control and follow up the farmers, we give training for
different crop production. We try to collect and then to multiply them and to re-distribute them.
These farmers will be source of seeds for others. Currently much of the seeds are supplied by the
informal seed system, different channels. I think that in the future the formal seed sector will be
more strong. Now we have different seed enterprises in different regions and now we are in the
more important region. The idea is to reach and to increase the volume of certified seeds and then
farmers can have more and more seeds.
At the same time this may not be enough, so I think that the informal seed system will be still
operating. In my opinion we have also to boost private companies.
M: it is still at an early stage?
B: I think that private companies focus mostly on hybrids because they are profitable. At the same
time it is ok… it might be expensive also with the other inputs but it is fine to have also them. If
50
you take barley if you keep it clean and in good conditions you can use for four cycles so. I think
also that now the government wants to develop this seed system policy, now there is the draft…
new laws may come. Ata is working on this issue…
M: There is also the will to harmonize the seed policy so there can be more trade and
commercialization of seeds.
B: Yes, harmonization you are right. Because if you take wheat, it has a lot of importance and there
is a chance to exchange seeds and they can be used in one other country. But still in Ethiopia we
have subsistence smallholders farmers. We don’t have big commercial farmers and most of the
crops are grown in the highlands. I think that it needs many arrangements because you have to
address millions of farmers. In developed countries there are few farmers and a lot of land. In our
case land is small. Maybe one hectare, 1.5 maybe less.
M: it is planned to reform land?
B: I don’t know. This issue is in the hand of the government. Our population is booming and we
have to feed your population and to be self-sufficient. We have the potential, very good
environment. Good weather… we have to organize all these things.
M: yes, in integrating seed systems… so is there a shortage of seeds in the country?
B: yes, quality and pure seeds otherwise if you see farmers. Maize is better, it is not OPV… when it
comes to other varieties and crops is an issues. They are more productive. We are suppliers of
technology and we are coordinating at a national level. So for that we are the source of good
varieties with good yields. They are good but the extent of these varieties vary from crop to crop.
With different approaches we are trying to get technology to the farmers. So for that we can see
some changes in terms of productivity. From 1 ton to 2 tons… it is increasing, because of the use of
inputs, fertilizers, some crop protection measures. They are trying to use modern technology but we
have to reach every farmer. To disseminate and increase productivity and then supply raw materials
to agro-industries in the future for the factories, breweries need malt barley… cotton, livestock. I
think is the idea is to increase the productivity and the quality at the same time. Then we have crops
that can be exported. We are trying to be competitive at the international market so quality is
importance. We want to stop importation and to expand exportation… we are working on sesame,
coffee…
M: yes, this is my feeling that at the central level agriculture is transforming very fast. And the
farmers are more likely to use these improved varieties or they try to diversify the crops.
B: yes, it is a good question. There are two things… one aspect want to improve productivity, selfsufficient and to export, to substitute. So we are pushing with these improved varieties… they will
replace the traditional ones so there is an issue of diversity.
51
M: I think also that is a cultural shift…
B: yes, but still farmers grow different crops in his land. But the varieties may become more and
more few and replacing older one. This is a concern but we have this Biodiversity Institute and they
are conserving the landraces and traditional varieties. At EIAR we are as well trying to improve
them, and we are using also traditional varieties in cross-breeding programs as a source of parents.
And as much as possible we are trying to diversify the varieties of one crop. We can also advert
diseases so we need diversification. There is also the problem of wheat rust and we a big problem at
the national varieties.
M: do you think that these concerns can work together?
B: yes, we can integrate them. They are low yielder but they can stand the changes and attacks…
they are more tolerant. But at the same time we are trying to increase the productivity because the
population is growing…
M: how is the debate going on at the government level?
B: at the government level technology and productivity are important… we are now improving but
we have to produce more. But we can have more varieties in the countries in the different regions.
We are developing on our traditional varieties. We cannot totally forget diversity but we cannot
totally depend on these traditional varieties.
M: how do you improve seeds, working in the institutes, local breeders…
B: we are working on many crops, all types of pulses, oil crops… to address diseases… (…) in
different research centres representing the different agro-ecologies, around 15… at the same time in
the regions. We follow the federal and the regional system. We are working at the national and
cultural problems of the countries. We have many programs for different crops. And developed
teams with experts, problems come from the farmers, agro-industries. The MoA has different level
in the countries, it scales up the technology and then the seed companies have to multiply the
technology. It is working on large scale…
M: the farmers are keen to have these improved varieties?
B: you see in the past farmers were very reluctant they are slow to accept the technology. But this
time is different they really want to increase the productivity and the profit. We create awareness
they come to our centres asking for our technologies and to test them… things are changing, in the
last 10 years. We are sponsoring that…
M: are these varieties expensive for farmers?
B: hybrid are expensive, others they are not very expensive. OPV are not and we have different
system. We can give them for free or after the harvest they have to return back an amount of seed so
we can give to other farmers. From the seed enterprises the price is not…
52
M: so they can easily access these?
B: but there is a high demand but the supply is not sufficient…
M: do you see also international actors operating more in the future or more Ethiopian?
B: maybe in the future we see more private international… we have now few companies but I hope
that in the future… the problem is that big companies can monopolize everything. I think that some
regulations and it is good to encourage private companies. There is a high demand… but small
cereals are not profitable but demand is growing. But we don’t have the capacity now to satisfy the
demand. We have to encourage and develop new scheme. The price has to be encouraging as well,
support from the government. We have smallholders and the topography there should be some
mechanism so we can organize farmers in seed or grain production, in terms of quality and
quantity…
53
Annex II: Interview transcript II
Interview transcript: Independent Agriculturalist (06/06/2014) 3 pm at his
office, Kazanchis
Melaku: so, what we were discussing… corporations control… so you see the point is how are
involved in these issues and the international scientific community were it that happy. Certain
groups were interested in taking genes, from where they find… Ethiopia is a very important
diversity center so we are concerned. So when I was at the gene bank many scientists came, some
where very good, well concerned. You know Pat Mooney he is a Canadian he did so much to
protect developing countries, any countries that have diversity and a lot of resources which is
valuable and also in danger of all kinds…
Me: I was reading a journal article and it was called “botanical imperialism”, describing the
rubber trade from the Amazon forest to produce in the automobile factories…
M: that is the worst case scenario especially in the Amazon… the trouble is we don’t know what is
in the forest, we know very little so we are destroying what we don’t know… in Africa you see you
can look at it from different perspectives and views… for example in those places where
colonization continued for many years and the Europeans took the raw material from those places
and they commercialized… I travelled a lot in these places and I interacted a lot there with these
commercial companies and even in the television arguing in Zimbabwe. On a smaller scale they
were doing the same things as the corporations were doing, Monsanto Pioneer Hybrid. In fact with
Monsanto, these companies were still operating in Africa work together with multinationals. They
are interested on imposing ideas that are imported from those corporations and they are trying to
convince the governments saying: look, if you want to feed your people you need to produce more.
This is where the problem comes from. It is a very big challenge…
M: Yes, also reading the official papers and documents they are mostly interested about
productivity, losing the discourse of crop diversity for example and for which purpose this maize
will be used (just for food, but it is healthy to eat just one variety?)
M: this is correct but more serious is that these commodity crops, as well as whatever the food
crops they produce cannot continue because everything change especially now with climate
change… it is an intricate system where we have so many stakeholders on the part of moneymaking companies, petroleum companies and the seed producers and policy-makers and agencies
like IMF, WB. They are not that “clean”… but my impression is: they all work in such way… I
mean, they are generally interested to help but they do that wrongly. You see from our perspective
54
of developing countries for many years, for 30 years. It was a very long time. Here we can make
two ends meaning, if you take the local material of crops maybe they are not very productive but
they have what we call broad adaptive gene complex which is very crucial because it can continue
over changes, it stays in equilibrium. So maybe that is not enough, is enhance –very important
word- you raise productivity without changing the adaptability of the species of the gene complex
without disturbing that. I was criticized everywhere… because local varieties are good for sources
of genes to improve the high-yielding varieties and there is no potential… we were arguing we
don’t know… it took several years in Ethiopia but it did come up ! we were able to show that and
Regassa was with me for many years and other fellows from universities. So, the point is, you need
indigenous material which does not require all these chemical inputs. You can enhance some
organic system, you manipulate on the fields rather than keeping on giving chemical inputs… it
means other stakeholders will sell them… that is way with the cooperative … and the plant
breeders are working to develop their varieties that require more so they respond better when they
put more so everybody is happy.
M: somebody suggest that one sustainable gain in the fertilizers’ consumption is no more importing
fertilizers but producing them here in Ethiopia.
M: you see the problem is the training… where I was trained there is a Western model and ok, in
those countries this has been a system now is becoming more comprehensive and complicated. But
the point is… those countries have lost the local material many years back hundreds years ago but
modernisation required all these and they have gone so far… and they have detached form the
realities of the ground… but there are small farmers who are now working with organic and it is
coming up… this issue of looking into has to have the right perspective and angle is going to be
very crucial… if you take the Ethiopian farmers’ varieties- because farmers are the one who
develop these they have so much knowledge especially the women but it also being lost… so in
these community seed banks we are after not only conserving the seeds but also the knowledge
about this. So they go together so you have to synergize the forces…
M: yes, there is a sort of co-evolution
M: yes, nothing is static. It is all dynamic so it changes, that’s what life is. Slowly and not. so the
point is they are going to be more and more important.
M: what is the attitude at the official level?
M: they are confused. Now it is interesting here in Ethiopia we are in a way quite lucky. On one
hand they talk a lot about fertilizers but they never stop you on the way you are working-like
Regassa is doing. They are encouraging them.
M: is the extent of few experiments?
55
M: no, it is expanding especially in schools, universities, local governments. Now they are asking
for more. We started, I was accused of taking everybody back to the stone age but I am said I am
trying to promote diversity and then productivity. Most of the arguments in FAO- I had a lot of
challenges with big celebrities in the field- I remember being told that landraces have reached their
ceiling they cannot being improved any further and you have to stop there as use them as a source
of genes. I said no, for us all these conditions we can’t have one size to fits one we have to create
and adaptive gene complex- no that we create we have to sustain the one who is already there and
improve in terms of productivity through enhancement, a change which is broader ant asked into
consideration that the diversity is also there. You don’t compromise the diversity too much.
The other thing is that here the topography changes a lot, soils, water resources. You cannot have
one thing, you need more to fit into the place. So, the farmers developed, not by accident, they were
collaborating, varieties with plasticity over location, over time and diversity. If you take local
variety you start from a point and go all the way north for example you will see that that variety will
grow over a stretch of locations without any problems but it can have different names and colours.
If you loose it here you will find somewhere else. It happens for different reasons… in local
markets they discuss, they exchange knowledge and material. Both the knowledge and material are
exposed to different environmental conditions, over many years it has gained a broad adaptability
and the change with respect to climate. If you come up with a new varieties that have lost its
adaptive capacity how are you going to sustain it? With chemicals and other inputs? … coffee
break… we have to scale-up the production and collaborate with farmers. But don’t’ lose the
farmers criteria. They don’t loose diversity when they select, they promote diversity, which is
opposite to conventional breeders.
M: kind of monoculture frame of mind, not only in agriculture…
M: I am glad that you have a good understanding… I was arguing on that line that also were talking
about connecting the laboratory with the farms.
M: were farmers keen to collaborate with you?
M: they were happy yes. You have to work along the farmers’ interests. The argument was in the
gene bank-one of the best that I know- the Germans were giving us the money. They were here to
collaborate but we did not allow them to do everything. We sent our researchers to Britain and later
they were instructed her in Ethiopia and they were able to get inside the problems. So, I say to
myself and my colleague. Look, if we don’t collaborate with the farmers what we collect today and
put in the gene bank no matter for how long we take few samples but we don’t have to disconnect
from their environment- how can they co-evolve? So, I said maybe we should work with the
farmers as well. It is good to have the samples in the gene bank but also we can have conservation
56
in situ with the farmers- they conserve through use. It was a dynamic process. They were arguing
no, in situ is for wild races no landraces. This is already in situ. I was no the only one arguing that,
now almost everybody accept that. But it coincided with the famine period in the early 80s where
our people were dying. In Wollo people were starving to death, but maybe somewhere else people
were fat. But in the past, people migrated reciprocally to escape from these disasters. Now the
nature of the population is different. When these things happened in my country there were a lot of
food grains coming to save lives. But at the same time some farmers were forced to eat the seeds
they kept for planting the next season. We have to go on a martial intervention across the country so
we went out and saved some landraces and exchanged with some food. One other problem was:
farmers after losing their landraces they have no seeds to plant and so they had to import seeds. This
is a good strategy for commercial companies you see. You are opening a wide door for them, but
also introducing them but also you lose your food security… how can you sustain crops that were
developed under different conditions? It requires a lot of inputs, mechanization and high
technology. Technology is appropriate when it can co-evolve.
M: a development within the system…
M: but they very good fellow such as ETC, Pat Mooney. It got the alternative Nobel price but
nobody liked him, Henk Gobelink. We need them, Gaia Foundation… many worked together in
collaboration and we were able to make the things together without external inputs. So you can use
compost, this is the safest. But we have one other problem: climate change, which is very fast. Coevolution was following a certain peace. How about the future? We have to look for the wild gene
poll. If you look a forest and proceed toward the farm in many case there is a transition. This
transition means that in between there is a pasture, grass and here you find wild species of all kinds.
Some of them are used as food, medicinal purposes. But they could also serve as a sources of seed
for the landraces. We have to look at ecological niches and protect them.
One thing I’ve noted, I don’t know politics… we were discussing with local governments I think
they were honest, this is discussed in the parliament… but in other places modernisation comes and
you lose something at the same time.
M: One thing that I’ve noted in these interviews was the importance of the word “investments” …
I’ve tried to understand the perceptions of social and cultural changes along with biodiversity but it
was difficult to see for them that the picture is really complex. One other point is that it is not only
international companies but mostly Ethiopian.
M: absolutely. Same thing in every countries in Africa. I travelled to Zimbabwe in 1985 the first
time, I was myself, Regassa and one other colleague… there was this agency ENDA, trying to
protect farmers’ varieties. So we travelled to 600 km to Zambia and we just passed by a farm and
57
we saw a group of people standing. It was illegal for any farmer to grow local varieties… now it is
different… the policeman and there was a farmer saying you can’t touch my plant, they were going
to fight. They were trying to convince him that is against the law. The farmer was saying this is my
crop, is my law. We were asked by the extension man. There was this small plot of sorghum. They
wanted him to lose that and to impose hybrid maize. The vice-minister of agriculture, white man
and we were on the television and we explained our point of view. He invited as well a commercial
breeder who said these things have no potential. One a second trip but BT gene for cotton, I was
watching the television and this guy was saying that they imported a resistant cotton that we can
grow extensively in the country. The journalists they were not informed, how they could argue, they
don’t know the science. (…) I wanted to ask: do you think that it is going to last forever? You need
a lot of inputs, these fellows did not know and the guy had his glory.
In developing countries we need a team work: social scientists, geneticists, anthropologists, layers,
all kind working together. You need more diverse groups, socio-economists which is very crucial.
But these things are really complex. This is what we lack. But there are several others… I am old
now but I don’t lose hope… I was really in trouble when I was young. (… university in
Wisconsin…).
This is the scenario: my stand now all issues I am in the full argument that small farmers feed the
world. But we have to support their work, morally, technically and resource-wise and with
gratitude. We need scientists and farmers working together, there should not be any top-down…
from the grassroots. We don’t want to fight with Monsanto… this is a fight between David and
Goliath. Why fight? We go ahead, we must work in a competitive way we have to work so they are
not needed anymore. Use your energy to engage with the work so that you prove yourself and they
will be no longer necessary. So they slowly face out. I think this is the best strategy. But they have a
lot of power, you know they can do everything. The entire global community is trying to be
concerned. It is changing in favour of what we want to do. It is a little bit too late maybe for me. It
has to come more quickly.
[…]
58
Annex III: Table of interviews quoted in-text
Name Quoted in Text
Private Seed Company
International
Institution
NGO
NGO1
NGO2
International
Partnership
Scientific expert
Independent
Agriculturalist
Organisation
and
Position
Pioneer-Hi
Bred
Ethiopia-director
FAOCountry
Program Director
ISD-President
MELCA-Director
EOSA- President
AGRA-Programme
Officer-SEPA
EIAR-Crop
Researcher
Former Chairman of
the
Institute
of
Biodiversity
Conservation
Time
Sex
10/06/2014
Male
10/06/2014
Male
22/05/2014
16/05/2014
16/05/2014
08/06/2014
Female
Male
Male
Male
07/06/2014
Male
06/06/2014
Male
NOTE: Interviews were all held in Addis Ababa a part from the one conducted via email with
AGRA.
59
Annex IV: “As the Benefit of Agricultural Investment is Multipronged Give not Ear to
Doomsayer Blogger!” – Ministry of Agriculture- Agricultural Investment Agency
(n.d.)
As the Benefit of Agricultural Investment is Multipronged Give Not Ear to Doomsayer Bloggers!
In life it is not uncommon to come across skeptics who say the cup is half empty than half full.
Worse still there are doomsayers who barefacedly claim white is black or honey is gal. By fair
means or foul they want to get a vantage point tarnishing the image of their contenders in the
political landscape. That is exactly what cheap popularity seekers are doing pertaining to the huge
agricultural investments at the western part of the country.
The Gambela as well as the Benshiangul Gumuze National Regional States are geographically
located at the lowlands of the western part of the country. In the two regional states the sparsely
settled inhabitants eke out a living from shifting cultivation and animal husbandry.
Both regional states famous known for bounty and plenty are blessed with a vast amount of arable
lands. Ironically though, the fecund lands used to lie fallow. Sad as it may sound their farming
system too has been archaic.
In light of these facts there is a call for breathing life in to their way of living. Rendering people of
the two regional states beneficiaries of socio-economic services necessitates clustering dots of huts
scattered across the respective regional states and introducing modern agriculture.
And as such creating communities letting people of these states live in big villages than scattered
houses has become a focus of attention. Towards this end selecting virgin lands practical works
have kicked off. The idea was already there. It was waiting for a ripe moment. Many inhabitants
were eagerly looking forward to it.
People who had been eager for resettlement were embraced under a committee set to see to the task.
To ensure transparency and accountability as well as make the task sound the committee was made
to comprise representatives from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Regional Investment
Agencies, Elders and regions like the South Ethiopian People's Regional State which have a
firsthand experience in resettlement activities. Secondary data too were taken.
60
When scattered houses converge into big villages, people no longer become vulnerable to manmade
and natural disasters. Nor will they swelter under the lack of basic infrastructural facilities as they
could easily get these facilities at their doorstep and become beneficiaries of modern technologies.
Such resettlements also help people come together in to spots conducive for development. Settlers
also stand a chance to avail themselves of socio-economic services that create a platform for
warding off poverty and backwardness not to mention the advantage for technology transfer. If one
is sane enough to reflect the advantages people of the two regional states enjoy could not be subject
to doubt.
Not to create discomfort on settlers when spots for resettlement were selected cultural, social,
religious aspects were taken into account.
After a thorough research on how the settlement work and the investment activity feed on each
other, lands were recently handed over to productive investors. These investors are now busy in
groundbreaking activities.
Researches were conducted to render the economic advantage people of the regional states reap
commensurate with the untapped potential of the vast lands of the locality for agricultural practices.
Harnessing the vast lands conducive for agricultural investment, it is possible to lend a strong
foothold to the country's product and productivity. A need was therefore felt for the invitation of
productive investors, who with capital injection could make people of the regional states
beneficiaries of progress and modern technologies. Aside from helping residents of the locality be
beneficiaries of socio- economic services and scientific technologies, such investment putting the
vast arable land into effective use helps in establishing a system that augments the economic
benefits the country obtains.
Accordingly up on the finalization of a study on ways of bringing together scattered villages the
task of clustering them in favorable spots has proceeded apace. When a research on agricultural
investment was conducted the country's land management policy was taken into consideration.
Taking in to account the reality in the two regional states, the resettlement work has become a
policy direction.
In accordance to the actual situation in the two regional states the collection of scattered villages
61
and the allotment of land for agricultural investment purpose were done in a positive and cross
fertilizing manner. The resettlement of the community has become a focus of attention. Lands that
served no other purpose before were selected for resettlement purpose. Inhabitants get resettled in
not distant places from their former dwellings and live in a not different lifestyle.
Lands where people settled, lands devoted for agriculture, lands left for pastures, lands fenced off
for forest and wild animals, lands put aside for future settlement purpose, lands aimed for clustering
dots of huts, lands for agriculture investment purpose and the suitability of each land for what kind
of investment were explicitly specified. And the so specified allotment of land is fed into the
information hub of the federal Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) to facilitate the land transfer work to
productive investors.
The Gambela Peoples Regional State is located at the western and south west lowland areas of the
country. It is divided in to three administrative zones, twelve Weredas and one special Wereda and
258 Kebles. It covers a 34,063 square kilometer area. On the average 9.01 people live on a square
kilometer land. In a census survey conducted in 2007G.C the population in this regional state was
proved to be 306,916.
On the other hand the Benishangul Gumuze Regional State is found at the northern west part of the
country .It is divided into three zones, in ten Weredas and two special Weredas. It covers a
49,289.46 square kilometer area .On the average 13.6 people live in on a square kilometer area .In a
census conducted 2007 G.C the population size was found out to be 670,847.
Lands are being transferred in a transparent and accountable manner to productive investors.
Investors also get enough information about preconditions. To outreach all, information is uploaded
on websites as well. Investors get follow up technical support. They are required to observe ethical
codes of conduct, acts, rules and regulations. Up on engaging in investment works they are
expected to strictly observe their activities are environment friendly.
By now the reader could gather the land transfer work for agricultural investment activity is crucial
in transferring technology to the people, creating job opportunities, expanding infrastructural
facilities, bolstering other socio-economic services, ensuring food securities and creating a better
life style to the people. Moreover it helps in boosting national product and productivity as well as
rising income tax and foreign currency earnings. That is why agricultural investment has got focal
62
attention at all regional states.
Formerly MoA's relation with regional states was focused on agricultural development revolving
around farmers but since the past five years the government has accorded focal attention to
agricultural investment. A wide ranging excellent works approved by the council of ministers are
being done.
An agreement has been reached by regional states to let the federal MoA administer abutting lands
that cover over 5000 hectares of land. So far 1.226 million and 1.48 million hectares of land from
Gambella and Benishangul Gumuze Regional States are set aside to MoA for administration
purpose. Here MoA serve as a representative of the two regional states.
In the Gambela Regional State 22,5012 hectares of land is handed over to local and foreign
investors, while 9,9431 hectares of land in Benishangul Gumuze Regional State. All in all 400,000
hectares of land is given to 39 investors among which the majority comprises Ethiopians including
Diasporas.
The rental fee is directly channeled to the Regional States and Weredas. The sum in turn could feed
the development endeavors of the regional states. Of course this boosts the government's returns
from income tax.
The bottom line is the benefit from huge agricultural investments is multipronged. If at all there are
inconveniencies, they pale in light of the benefits to be derived. So give not ear to doomsayer
bloggers.
63
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