Rinnakkaistallenteet Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta
2020
Land Rights, Urban Agriculture and the Right to Food: The Case of Addis Ababa
Tura, Husen Ahmed
Tieteelliset aikakauslehtiartikkelit
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Land Rights, Urban Agriculture and the Right to Food:
The Case of Addis Ababa
Husen Ahmed Tura
Researcher, UEF Law School, University of Eastern Finland husen.tura@uef.fi
1. Introduction
Food security encompasses four dimensions: physical availability, economic and physical accessibility, proper utilization of food and the stability of the three dimensions over time.1 Food insecurity, on the other hand, occurs when even one of these elements is not fulfilled. The legal counterpart of food security is the right to food. Pursuant to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)2 the right to food protects an individual’s legal claim or entitlement to adequate food through own production and/or procurement. Like all other human rights, this right imposes three levels or types of obligations on states, i.e., duties to respect, protect and fulfil.
Ethiopia`s constitution of 1995 recognizes all ratified human rights treaties as an integral part of the national legal system.3 The constitution also enshrines that its provisions pertaining to human rights, including the right to food, must be interpreted in light of international human rights instruments adopted by the country.4 Besides, it implicitly recognizes the right to food as a component of broader rights such as the right to an improved standard of living and the right to sustainable development, among others. However, the government of Ethiopia has not enforced the right to food as part of its endeavors to tackle hunger and malnutrition.5
Like many African cities, Addis Ababa experiences the double burden of malnutrition, which is attributable to widespread urban poverty and income inequality in one hand, and the consumption of unhealthy processed diets on the other6. It faces a high level of undernutrition and a growing burden
1 FAO ‘Rome Declaration on World Food Security and Plan of Action” (Rome, 1996). Accessed May 19, 2020.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.htm.
2 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976, 993 UNTS 3 Art 11.
3 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Constitution, 1995 Art. 9(4).
4 The FDRE Constitution (n 3 above) Art. 13(2).
5 H Tura, ‘Achieving Zero Hunger: Implementing a Human Rights Approach to Food Security in Ethiopia’ (2019) 40 Third World Quarterly 1613.
6 A Onyango and others, ‘Regional Overview on the Double Burden of Malnutrition and Examples of Program and Policy Responses: African Region’ (2019) 75 Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism 127.
of overweight and obesity which remained unaddressed. According to information received from the City’s Government, over 1.6 million residents (33%) of the city currently rely on a food safety net program as they lack sufficient resources to provide for themselves. The rate of overweight/obesity is also rising mainly among the urban wealthy. A study shows that 7.6% of public primary school children and 23% of private school children in the city are overweight7. Nevertheless, chronic urban food insecurity hardly attracts sufficient attention of policymakers. Most government interventions on food security have predominantly focused on small farmers and rural areas.
Ethiopia is urbanizing rapidly due to “migration from villages to towns, urban expansion to peri-urban areas and the natural growth of urban inhabitants”8. The rate of urbanization in the country was 16.1
% in 20079 and 20.4 % in 2017.10 In 1984, the urban population was 4.7 million but increased to 11.9 million in 2007.11 The Ministry of Urban Development and Housing projected that the urban population of the country will account for 27–30 % by 2025 and 40 % by 2037. This means between 2015 and 2037, the urban population will see 39 million people increase.12 According to the UN projection, the metro area population of Addis Ababa is 4,794,000 in 2020, which is a 4.4% increase from 2019.13
Rapid urbanization, in turn, triggered expropriation of massive farmland from peri-urban smallholders with low compensation and little rehabilitation support, who have been exposed to many economic and social crises.14 Despite its enormous potential to improve urban food security and nutrition,15 existing urban land law and urban planning policy do not create a favourable condition to promote urban farming.
7 J Wurwarg, ‘Urbanization and Hunger: Food Policies and Programs, Responding to Urbanization, and Benefiting the Urban Poor in Three Cities’ (2014) 67 Journal of International Affairs 75, 80.
8 EA Tesfaunegn, ‘Urban and Peri–Urban Development Dynamics in Ethiopia’ (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation 2017).
9 CSA, ‘The 2007 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia’ National Statistical Report (Addis Ababa: Office of the Population Census Commission 2010).
10 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). ‘World Population Prospects:
The 2017 Revision’, DVD edition (median variant).
11 H Assefa, ‘Ethiopia’s Changing Demography’, The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy (Oxford University Press 2019).
12 MUDH, ‘Urban Development Spatial Planning’, (Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, Addis Ababa 2015).
13 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Population Division, World Population Prospects Highlights, 2019 Revision Highlights (2019).
14 F Abdissa and T Degefa, ‘Urbanization and Changing Livelihoods: The Case of Farmers’ Displacement in the Expansion of Addis Ababa’ in Charles Teller (ed), The Demographic Transition and Development in Africa: The Unique Case of Ethiopia (Springer Netherlands 2011).
15 R Veenhuizen and Danso G, Profitability and Sustainability of Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (Food & Agriculture Org 2007).
This chapter investigates the economic and social crisis faced by displaced farmers due to Addis Ababa’s expansion and overviews legislative and administrative measures recently taken to resettle and rehabilitate. It also analyses implications of Proclamation No. 1161/2019 for the realization of the right to food of displaced farmers from the city and its surroundings. In addition, it discusses the benefits of urban agriculture to improve food security and sketches initiatives adopted by the City’s Government to promote the same. It concludes by emphasizing the need for embracing a rights-based approach to improve urban food security in Ethiopia.
2. The right to food and food security: an overview
2.1 The right to food
The right to food is protected under international human rights law. For instance, the ICESCR recognizes the right to adequate food as a component of the right to an improved standard of living16 and enshrines the right to be free from hunger as a fundamental right of everyone17. The ICESCR obliges its States Parties to improve methods of food production, conservation and distribution, and to fully utilize technical and scientific knowledge, disseminate knowledge of the principles of nutrition, and reform agrarian systems.18 Human rights treaties also recognize the right to food of children, women and persons with disabilities.19
The 1996 World Food Summit recognized the importance of a rights-based approach to tackle food insecurity and called for the elaboration of the normative contents of the right to adequate food as contained in Article 11 of the ICESCR. As a response, in 1999, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) adopted General Comment No. 12 on the Right to Adequate Food.
The CESCR states that the right to adequate food is achieved “when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, have physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”.20 As urban food security hugely depends on procurement, an individual’s or a household’s income and food price affect the affordability of sufficient, safe and
16 ICESCR (n 2 above) Art. 11(1))
17 CESCR (n 2 above) Art. 11(2))
18 CESCR (n 2 above).
19 See Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) Art 24;
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) Art. 12 and 14; Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, entered into force 3 may 2008) Art 28(1).
20 CESCR ‘General Comment 12 on the Right to Adequate Food’ 1999, para 6.
nutritious food. The right to adequate food implies ‘[t]he availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances, and acceptable within a given culture’ and ‘[t]he accessibility of such food in ways that are sustainable and that do not interfere with the enjoyment of other human rights’.21 Thus, the normative content of the right to adequate food comprises food availability, adequacy, accessibility, and sustainability.
The right to food involves corresponding obligations of states. States Parties to the ICESCR must (1) take appropriate steps including legislative, policy, budgetary and educational measures to progressively realize socio-economic rights; (2) observe the duty of non-discrimination and (3) cooperate at the international level including through economic and technical assistance to ensure that everyone has access to adequate food. The obligation to take “steps to achieve progressively the full realization of the right to adequate food imposes an obligation to move as expeditiously as possible towards that goal”.22 The CESCR elaborated obligations of states to respect, protect and fulfil (facilitate and provide) the right to food as follows.
The obligation to respect existing access to adequate food requires States parties not to take any measures that result in preventing such access. The obligation to protect requires measures by the State to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive individuals of their access to adequate food. The obligation to fulfil (facilitate) means the State must proactively engage in activities intended to strengthen people’s access to and utilization of resources and means to ensure their livelihood, including food security. Finally, whenever an individual or group is unable, for reasons beyond their control, to enjoy the right to adequate food by the means at their disposal, States must fulfil (provide) that right directly. This obligation also applies to persons who are victims of natural or other disasters.23
2.2 Food security
The widely used definition of food security was formulated by the 1996 World Food Summit. It “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.24 Food security, as per this definition, involves four important pillars. These are physical availability, economic and physical accessibility, proper utilization and the stability of the three pillars over time. On the other hand, food insecurity exists when these dimensions are not fulfilled simultaneously.
21 CESCR (n 20 above) para 8.
22 CESCR (n 20 above) para 14.
23 CESCR (n 20 above) para 15.
24 FAO ‘Rome Declaration on World Food Security and World Food Summit Plan of Action’ World Food Summit (FAO, Rome, 13-17 November 1996).
Food availability pertains to the supply side of the food economy and could be achieved through increasing domestic production and facilitating imports. Agricultural development strategies such as land tenure reform, input supply and subsidies, natural resource conservation, use of improved technologies, improving rural infrastructure and food marketing as well as agricultural research and extension are crucial to increase domestic food production. Facilitating food imports complements domestic food production. It is key especially for urban consumers who purchase their food. Policies that could facilitate food imports include trade liberalization, easing import licenses, removing tariff and non-tariff restrictions on food imports, and promoting market information.
Food accessibility is contingent on the economic ability of individuals and households to produce or procure the food they need. Poverty and lack of adequate income constrain access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food even when plenty of food is available on the market. Policies designed for national poverty reduction such as agricultural development, employment and income generation, and public transfers/social safety nets are vital to ensure the economic accessibility of food. Short-term interventions such as social safety net programs and public transfers including direct food aid, cash transfers, feeding programs including school feeding, targeted subsidies, cash- and food-for-work programs are key to feed the most vulnerable people.
Effective food utilization refers to the ability of individuals to use food by preserving their dietary quality during food preparation and consumption. Efficient utilization could be constrained by factors such as “lack of knowledge about proper food preparation, to ensure food safety and preserve the nutritional quality of food; lack of knowledge about nutritional requirements and nutrient contents of food (including macro-and micro-nutrients); diseases and poor health; lack of hygiene, sanitation and safe drinking water”.25
Instabilities in food availability and access create temporary food shortages that might originate from periodic disparities of food supplies, yearly variations of food supplies, and/or acute scarcities due to natural or man-made disasters (drought, flood, earthquake, war, refugees). States need to formulate and implement an effective system of disaster preparedness and response, including an Early Warning System (EWS) and other actions to guarantee food stability. Policies like seasonal or short-term employment systems (food-for-work, cash-for-work) or food aid programs may help mitigate the consequences of instabilities in the food supply.
25 FAO ‘Food Security Policies Formulation and Implementation’, (2009) 7-8.
Some policies may serve to achieve more than one dimensions of food security. For instance, policies regarding agricultural development, land tenure and rural finance are instrumental to facilitate food availability and accessibility. The following figure demonstrates multiple track policy instruments.
Multiple effects of policy measures in different policy spheres
Source: FAO (n 25 above) 9.
3. Overview of Legal and Policy Frameworks for Right to Food and Food Security in Ethiopia
3.1 The Right to Food
Status of ICESCR: The act of ratification or adoption of international treaties incorporates them into the national legal system according to Article 9(4) of the FDRE Constitution. Ethiopia ratified the ICESCR on June 11, 1993. In theory, therefore, the Ethiopian courts may directly apply the ICESCR and enforce the right to food. In practice, however, the litigation of the right to food is nonexistent.26
FDRE Constitution: It does not explicitly enshrine the right to food. Instead, it recognizes other rights that implicitly acknowledge this right. For instance, it expressly stipulates the right to life27, the right
26 N Ramanujam, N Caivano and S Abebe, ‘From Justiciability to Justice: Realizing the Human Right to Food’ (2015) 11 McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy 1; HA Tura, ‘Linking the Rights to Food and Land in Ethiopia : The Need to Reform the Relevant Legal Framework to Enhance Food and Nutrition Security’ (Dissertation, University of Eastern Finland 2020).
27 The FDRE Constitution (n 3 above) Art 15.
to property28, the right to livelihood (to engage freely in economic activity and to pursue a livelihood of one’s choice)29, the right to work30, the right to an improved standard of living and sustainable development31. These rights are important to enforce the right to food and other socio-economic rights.
The constitution also enshrines that “[t]o the extent the country’s resources permit, policies shall aim to provide all Ethiopians access to … clean water, housing, food and social security” within the framework of the national policy principles and objectives32.
Sectoral laws: the right to food can affect and be affected by sectoral laws. Thus, Ethiopian laws governing natural resources (including land, forest, and fishery), labour and employment, investment, and domestic and international trade are instrumental in realizing the right to food in the country.
Urban food security is affected by employment opportunities, income, and trade in foods (food distribution) since residents of cities and towns purchase their food, unlike rural residents who produce the food they consume.
3.2 Food Security Policies
Food security policies can be designed in two formats. First, the objectives of achieving food security can be incorporated into broad development policies and strategies relating to poverty reduction and economic development. Improving national and household food security has been an integral component of national development strategies and plans of the government of Ethiopia such as the Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (1994-2009/10) and the Growth and Transformation Plans (2010/11-2020)33. Secondly, countries may design and implement specific food security and nutrition policies. Ethiopia has formulated specific food security strategies since 1996 comprising four components: productive safety nets program, voluntary resettlement program, asset building and protection and off-farm activities. The objectives of the food security strategies were twofold. First, they were aimed to provide direct food aid to chronically food-insecure vulnerable people in both urban and rural areas. For instance, more than 1.6 million residents (about the population of West Virginia) of Addis Ababa are being supported through an urban food safety net program.34 There have
28 The FDRE Constitution (n 3 above) Art 40.
29 The FDRE Constitution (n 3 above) Art 41.
30 FDRE Constitution (n 3 above). Art 42.
31 FDRE Constitution (n 3 above) Art 43.
32 FDRE Constitution (n 3 above) Art. 90(1).
33 Fantu Cheru, Christopher Cramer and Arkebe Oqubay, The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy (Oxford University Press 2019).
34 OBN Interview with Takele Uma Banti (Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa City Administration) May 15, 2020.
been rural safety net programs implemented since 200535. Second, the productive safety net programs have targeted to transition and graduate food-insecure households to sustainably feed themselves by providing them with access to productive resources and gainful economic activities.
4. Basic causes of Ethiopian food insecurity
Despite having fertile arable land, a climate condition suitable for yearlong farming and abundance of water resource36, Ethiopia is one of the most food-insecure countries in the world. It still depends on both commercial food imports and direct food aid to feed millions of people who face chronic hunger and malnutrition.37 Multidimensional factors have contributed to the Ethiopian food insecurity.
Included are the dependence of the country’s economy on rainfed subsistence agriculture (that is highly vulnerable to effects of climate change), low productivity of land, landlessness, arbitrary land expropriation without just compensation, population pressure, inadequate wage, high rate of unemployment, increasing food price as well as weak legal and political accountability for violation of rights.38 In what follows, we shall summarize some of the basic causes of Ethiopian food insecurity.
4.1 Dependence on subsistence rainfed agriculture: The country’s smallholder agriculture is rainfed and most farmland remains idle during dry seasons. Devereux notes that:
Food insecurity in Ethiopia derives directly from dependence on undiversified livelihoods based on low-input, low-output rainfed agriculture. …Farmers do not produce enough food even in good rainfall years to meet consumption requirements. Given the fragile natural resource base and climatic uncertainty, current policy emphases on agricultural intensification are misguided, while institutional constraints …perpetuate this unviable livelihood system.39 Despite a high vulnerability of agriculture to the effects of climate changes such as droughts and floods, irrigation supports only about 5% of the country’s agricultural production.40 These result in low production and productivity of food, which is also linked to soil erosion and backward way of
35A Alpha and S Gebreselassié ‘Governing Food and Nutrition Security in Food-Importing and Aid-Recipient Countries:
Burkina Faso and Ethiopia’ (LEI Wageningen UR 2015) 34.
36 H Tura, ‘Achieving Zero Hunger: Implementing a Human Rights Approach to Food Security in Ethiopia’ (2019) 40 Third World Quarterly 1613.
37Alpha and Gebreselassié (n 35 above).
38 H Tura ‘Linking the Rights to Food and Land in Ethiopia : The Need to Reform the Relevant Legal Framework to Enhance Food and Nutrition Security’ (Dissertation, University of Eastern Finland 2020); H Tura ‘Linking Land Rights and the Right to Adequate Food in Ethiopia: Normative and Implementation Gaps’ (2017) 35 Nordic Journal of Human Rights 85.
39 S Devereux ‘Food Insecurity in Ethiopia’ (IDS Sussex, 2000) 1.
40 USAID ‘Agriculture and Food Security: Ethiopia’ <https://www.usaid.gov/ethiopia/agriculture-and-food-security>
accessed 4 June 2020.
ploughing. In addition, millions of rural people are landless or have limited access to farmland.
Farmland was distributed to the tillers in most parts of the country during the Derg regime (between 1975 and 1991) and the sale or transaction of land has been officially prohibited since 1975 and in particular under the FDRE Constitution since 1995. This means those who did not get land during the Derg period are either landless or might depend on a small plot of land that they may get from their parents (through donation or inheritance) or other elderly peasants (through temporary rental or a crop sharing agreement). Landlessness of the most rural productive force and the low productivity of farmland that is possessed by the elderly negatively affect national food production and food security.
4.2 Entitlement Failure and Poverty: Amartya Sen argues that entitlement failure41 is key in the study of chronic food insecurity. He maintains that a person or household may face food insecurity when s/he fails to access adequate food through self-production (production-based entitlement), purchase (trade-based entitlement), working for food (own-labour entitlement) and/or receiving food from others (inheritance and transfer entitlement).42 Entitlement failure may occur even when there is no food availability decline in a country.43 Sen found that during the 1973 Wollo famine the overall food produced in Ethiopia was sufficient to feed its entire population.44 However, residents of Wollo (and to a lesser extent in Tigray) faced famine due to lack of sufficient means to produce or procure food and slightly food distribution was hindered due to poor transportation system between regions.45
Sen’s entitlement approach is criticized for failing to embrace the legal entitlement which entails rights and corresponding duties, which stem from international and/or national legal frameworks.46 Entitlement failure in the legal context may refer to lack of a right to economic means to produce or procure adequate food and the corresponding obligations of states and the international community to provide food aid during emergencies and to feed vulnerable groups who cannot provide for themselves due to reasons beyond their control. The legal protection of a justiciable right to food and other rights including rights to land, social security, and labour could be sources of entitlement to adequate food.
The successive governments of Ethiopia have not taken the human right to food seriously. Instead of law, policy instruments (programs and strategies) are used as the main tools for achieving food
41 A Sen Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981).
42 Sen (n 41 above) 2.
43 Sen (n 41 above).
44 Sen (n 41 above).
45 Sen (n 41 above).
46 B Fortman ‘Poverty as a Failure of Entitlement: Do Rights-Based Approaches Make Sense’, International Poverty Law:
An Emerging Discourse (2006).
security. Unlike the right to food, which is a legal entitlement, policies do not have the authority to create normative claims (entitlements, rights) and corresponding obligations.
4.3 Lack of democracy and legal accountability: A democratic government usually takes proactive measures to prevent famine or mitigate its effects as its popularity would be eroded if people were exposed to famine. Studies show that authoritarianism and lack of accountability have contributed to the famines that occurred in Ethiopia in 1973 and 1984. Both the Haile Selassie I imperial regime and the Derg military government failed to take swift measures to prevent and/or mitigate the effects of famines. Instead of providing food aid to those who were exposed to famines, both regimes “used state resources for self-promotion”47 amid deaths of millions of people due to hunger and malnutrition.
Likewise, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) government (that ruled the country between 1991 and 2018) used the law as an instrument of land expropriation without adequate compensation and resettlement options.48 Like its predecessors, the EPRDF regime was an authoritarian. The politicization of famines and abuse of power is attributable to democracy deficits and poor mechanisms for legal and political accountability in the country.
5. The Interplay between Land Rights and the Right to Food
In an agrarian society like Ethiopia, access to food depends on access to land. Small farmers produce food mainly for their household consumption. They also supply a surplus to the market and feed urban residents. This means access to land is not only crucial to rural residents, who account for over 80%
of the country’s population, to enjoy the right to food. Domestic food production and availability also affects the enjoyment of the right to food by urban dwellers. Although urban residents may purchase imported foods, most of them consume locally produced staple foods such as teff regardless of their price compared to imported ones.
The FDRE Constitution recognizes land rights of peasants, pastoralists and women (Arts 40(4, 5), 35(7)). The right to land ownership is reserved to the state and the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (Art 40(3)). Smallholder’s land rights (usufructuary rights) do not comprise “sale or other means of exchange.” There is disagreement among scholars and politicians on the effects of state ownership of land on tenure security and livelihoods of peasants. Proponents of state ownership of land argue that
47 B Kumar ‘Ethiopian Famines 1973-1985: A Case Study’ in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen (eds), The Political Economy of Hunger: Volume 2: Famine Prevention (1991) 181.
48 Tura (n 38 above).
the state ownership of land is key to ensure social equity and tenure security of smallholders who would sell their land and become landless had the private ownership been permitted49. It is argued also that the state ownership of land prevents an accumulation of land by a few individuals or groups who would afford to buy it.50 Opponents of state ownership of land, on the other hand, argue that it enables the ruling party to use land tenure to politically control peasants and expropriate them without adequate compensation.51 Displacements from farmland can deprive farmers of their means to produce food and undermine their food security.
The government of Ethiopia has implemented land registration and certification programs over the last two decades to strengthen tenure security. Studies indicate that the land certification program was important to prevent evictions induced by private actors and it minimizes conflicts among smallholders over land possession52. However, its effect is insignificant when land expropriations are undertaken by government agencies who usually displace small farmers without paying adequate compensation53. The state ownership of land restricts farmers’ right to sell their land on a market price and to claim just compensation during expropriations by government authorities. It also exposes smallholders to abuses of corrupt government officials who often expropriate farmlands for private interests under the guise of promoting public purposes.54 However, state ownership does not necessarily cause tenure insecurity and/or food insecurity. What matters is how it is interpreted and implemented by government authorities. In the following section, we shall discuss economic and social effects (including food insecurity) of land expropriations on peri-urban farmers due to the expansion of Addis Ababa.
6. Expansion of Addis Ababa and expropriation of peri-urban farmers
6.1 Effects of displacements on farmers’ livelihoods
As mentioned earlier, Ethiopia is urbanizing rapidly. The demand for urban land, in turn, triggers expropriation of many peri-urban farmers. Due to the expansion of Addis Ababa over the last decade alone, more than 67,000 farmers were arbitrarily expropriated.55 The farmers were dispossessed of
49 H Tura ‘Land Rights and Land Grabbing in Oromia, Ethiopia’ (2018) 70 Land Use Policy 247.
50 Tura (n 49 above).
51 AAt Vadala, ‘Understanding Famine in Ethiopia: Poverty, Politics and Human Rights’ in Svein Ege and others (eds), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (2009).
52 D Rahmato, Land to Investors: Large-Scale Land Transfers in Ethiopia (Forum for Social Studies 2011).
53 Daniel W Ambaye, Land Rights and Expropriation in Ethiopia (Springer International Publishing 2015); Tura (n 38 above).
54 Tura (n 38 above).
55 The data was obtained from the Addis Ababa Commission for Rehabilitation of Displaced Farmers and Urban Farming Development, September 10, 2020.
their farmland without adequate compensation or other alternative means of livelihood. They were impoverished and faced untold cultural, social, and economic crisis including chronic food insecurity.56 Most displaced farmers were forced to work as guards and maids of rich individuals who had built residences and business centres on the land the government had expropriated from them.
Their children dropped out of school to support their families as day labourers.57
As evidence of how peri-urban land expropriation has affected displaced farmers, we shall see experiences of some farmers who were expropriated as a result of the Tullu Dimtu condominium project in the Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfinnee.58
Mrs Debritu Yami and her family used to earn their livelihood on small farming located around Addis Ababa since she was young. Before the farmland was taken by the government for the Tullu Dimtu housing project, the family was productive and used to provide for themselves but also support their relatives residing in urban centres. However, after losing their land, the family was impoverished and forced to lead a destitute life. Mrs Debritu said the following:
Before our land was taken we used to produce adequate food including milk, egg, wheat, teff and other crops which were enough to satisfy my family’s food need. We also used to support our relatives living in urban areas. But after the land was taken, we have been in a critical problem. We lost our livelihood. The displacement compensation paid to us was finished in a few years. So instead of dying sitting idle, I distil tella although it is physically demanding and hardly generate income to purchase sufficient food. Since our land was taken, we suffer a lot from hunger and poverty. We could not support our children to attend school. As we failed to afford costs of schooling such as exercise books, books, clothes (uniforms and shoes), our children dropped out of schools. Some of them work on streets of Addis Ababa while others earn meagre income as day labourers. They do not even get this job regularly and suffer from hunger and destitution with us most of the time.59
Mr Nugussie Gebretsadik and his 10 family members used to secure their livelihood from farmland that was expropriated for the Tullu Dimtu housing project. The household used to produce 70 to 80
56 Tura (n 38 above).
57 Interview with Mrs Fatiya Mohammed, head of the Addis Ababa Commission for Rehabilitation of Displaced Farmers and Urban Farming Development, Addis Ababa, December 27, 2019.
58 The farmers were interviewed by Addis TV on December 5, 2018. The file is available with the author.
59 Interview with Mrs Debritu, Tullu Dimtu, December 5, 2018.
quintals of food crops per year on 2.2 hectares of land. However, the land was taken for 18 Birr/meter- square. Mr Nugussie said,
Before our landholding was expropriated we used to produce wheat, teff, bean, lentils and other food crops, which were sufficient to feed the family through the year. When our land was expropriated we lost our source of food and livelihood. The compensation paid by the government was finished after covering the costs of food and children’s education for only a few years. We are sitting idle and suffering from hunger and poverty.60
Another resident of the locality who was also displaced as a result of the Tullu Dimtu housing project is Mrs Tenaye Wondimu. She lives with her four children. Before she had been dispossessed of the landholding, her family used to lead a better life. A small amount of displacement compensation received was finished soon after spending to buy food and cover other family expenditure for a few years. Mrs Tenaye said, “We used to produce sufficient food for household consumption and sell the surplus to urban residents. Now we do not have anything. I get little income by selling some cans.”61
The displaced and impoverished farmers pleaded to the Addis Ababa City Government to fulfil its promises. Mr Nugussie said,
When it took our land, the Addis Ababa City Administration promised to organize us into cooperatives and enable us to engage in a block-stones factory; to create a job for us, to give us land for residential housing construction and urban agriculture. But the government failed to fulfil all of its promises. It should respect its promises because that matters a lot to us. Even when it may not be possible to reinstate us to the agricultural sector, the government should facilitate ways in which we could engage in another economic activity to sustainably secure our livelihood.62
Mrs Debritu also pleaded to the government, saying:
We need the government’s support for ourselves and our children. For instance, I am diabetic and 70 years old. Thus, I cannot work to generate a decent income and I need continuous
60 Interview with Mr Nugussie, Tullu Dimtu, December 5, 2018.
61 Interview with Mrs Tenaye, Tullu Dimtu, December 5, 2018.
62 Interview with Mr Nugussie, TulluDimtu, December 5, 2018.
support from the government. Our children also deserve continuous support to be rehabilitated and to reenroll to schools and continue their education.63
These cases are only the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands of farmers displaced from Addis Ababa and its surrounding over the last three decades have experienced a similar economic and social crisis.
The problem is attributed to both normative deficits in the law and violation of legal norms regarding land rights from the government side64.
6.2. Government’s responses to peri-urban displacements
6.2.1 Administrative measures taken to resettle and rehabilitate displaced farmers
After coming to power in 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has attempted to address the concerns of farmers displaced from Addis Ababa and its surroundings. His government halted the implementation of a controversial Addis Ababa Development Master Plan that triggered the Oromo protests of 2014 - 2018. The Addis Ababa City Government, under the leadership of Deputy Mayor Takele Uma, established a specific agency named “Addis Ababa Commission for Farmers and Urban Agriculture Development” (hereafter the Commission) that exclusively works to resettle and rehabilitate the farmers displaced from the city and its surroundings through the promotion of urban agriculture as well as by providing them with training and resources (including land, agricultural inputs, and financial support). The Commission has registered more than 67,000 displaced farmers and identifies their economic and social problems. Authorities of the Commission said they are working to resolve the problems of the displaced farmers. For instance, Mrs Fatiya Mohammed, the head of the Commission described what the displaced farmers lost as a result of land expropriation due to the city’s expansion as follows.
Farmers displaced from Addis Ababa and its surroundings lost their everything: their land, livelihood, and social cohesion. Besides losing economically, money or land, they lost social life and so many things. They faced an economic and social crisis. Also, they lost culturally, meaning their identity and language.65
63 Interview with Mrs Debritu, TulluDimtu, December 5, 2018.
64 Tura (n 38 above).
65 Interview with Mrs Fatiya Mohammed, head of the Addis Ababa Commission for Farmers and Urban Farming Development, Addis Ababa, December 27, 2019.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CmQw0B0Phk&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3VEBYMviQlDO- u4ZwNZWaPufEeXM2y33GE4omwTymTyVjxLBtENv3XOM0> accessed 27 May 2020.
Mrs Asrat Nugussie, the Chief Administrator of the Akaki Kaliti Sub-city also said:
The Addis Ababa City Administration pays special attention to rehabilitate the displaced farmers. Because these farmers contributed a lot to the development of this city. They lost their limited farmland to this city for an insignificant amount of compensation. Now they remain empty-handed. They deserve to get adequate training and financial support that could create for them a sustainable livelihood though this might not substitute their lost land. Thus, the farmers will be accommodated by the urban farming and engage in small industries as well as the service sector. As urban farming is the work they already knew, they can benefit themselves and the residents of the city if they engage in this sector. It can also serve as a successful strategy to enhance the city’s food security. The city administration will strive to make the displaced farmers the primary participants and beneficiaries from urban development.66
Mr Zenebe Woyessa also explains the need for robust rehabilitation support for displaced farmers as follows.
In general, our farmers lead their life by farming. They need close and continuous support to engage in a new economic sector to survive. It is not enough to give them some money in a form of allowance or compensation. Payment of displacement compensation that was inadequate alone cannot help them to sustainably resettle and rehabilitate. The money will be finished after some time. As we live and work with displaced farmers, we know their situation very well. Most of them are in a devastating situation. To work in agriculture, they don't have access to land. To engage displaced farmers in a sector other than agriculture, we need to provide them with proper training as well as financial support and other equipment to enable them to adapt to the new living style. Doing this is an obligation of the government.67
The City Government has started providing training to displaced farmers. For instance, the Akaki Kaliti branch office of the Commission for Farmers and Urban Farming Development has provided training to 512 displaced farmers who are organized into 47 cooperatives.68
6.2.2 Legislative Reform
Proclamation No. 455/2005 was highly criticized for legalizing and facilitating land expropriation without stipulating a landholder’s right to just compensation. In July 2019, it was repealed and replaced
66 Interview with Mrs Asrat Nugussie, Akaki Kaliti Sub-City Chief Administrator, Addis Ababa, December 27, 2019.
67 Interview with Mr Zenebe Woyessa, Addis Ababa Commission for Farmers and Urban Farming Development, Kaliti Office head, Addis Ababa, December 27, 2019.
68 Interview with Mr Zenebe Woyessa (n 67 above)
with a new Proclamation No. 1161/2019. The new land expropriation and compensation law enshrine a landholder’s right to “compensation for property situated on the land and permanent improvement made on the land.”69 It also stipulates the possibility of giving a substitute land or paying a displacement compensation to farmers permanently displaced. This law specifies that an expropriated smallholder may obtain “a substitute land if it is available.”70 The problem with this option (a substitute land as compensation) is that it is contingent on the availability of farmland in the area. Peri-urban land is scarce. It is under enormous pressure due to urban expansion. It is unlikely for a farmer expropriated from around the capital to get substitute farmland as compensation. The second option, according to this law, is the payment of displacement compensation that must be “equivalent to fifteen times of the highest annual income he generated during the last three years preceding the expropriation of the land” (emphasis added).71 This provision does not introduce substantial change concerning the amount of displacement compensation. The repealed provision stipulated that the amount of displacement compensation must be “equivalent to ten times the average annual income he secured during the five years preceding the expropriation of the land” (Emphasis added)72. The ten years aspect is now raised to fifteen years and the average annual income of five years is amended to be the highest annual income of the last three years.
The question is whether the amount of displacement compensation stipulated in this new law entitles a displaced landholder to just compensation. One of the variables to evaluate the adequacy of compensation could be the rights of landholders enshrined under the FDRE Constitution and other relevant laws. Article 40(4) of the Constitution provides that the “peasants have the right to obtain land without payment and the protection against eviction from their possession.” Moreover, the Federal Land Use and Land Administration Proclamation No.456/2005 stipulates that a rural landholder has the right to usufruct for an indefinite period. Thus, it seems unfair to a peri-urban farmer to receive a displacement compensation assessed by considering what could have been produced for 15 years only.
Needless to say, the land is smallholders’ food and means of livelihood. Given that an Ethiopian’s average life expectancy is about 66 years, it is unclear what members of a household would rely on to survive after the money paid for only 15 years finished. Also, it is uncertain why the policymakers fail to recognize an amount of compensation that would have been paid had the land privatized and sold on a market price (the restriction of the sale of land also complicates market value of land).
69See Expropriation of Land holdings for Public Purposes, Payments of Compensation and Resettlement Proclamation No.
1161-2019, Art. 12. Note that this provision is a verbatim copy of the repealed Proclamation No. 455/2005, Art. 7(1).
70 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 13(a).
71 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 13(c).
72 Proclamation 455/2005, Art. 8(1).
The constitutional protection of a smallholder against eviction (Art 40(4)) must be observed even when land is expropriation by the government. There is no such exception under the constitution in which the government uses the law to arbitrarily displace farmers. The state ownership of land was meant to protect landholder’s tenure security and potential landlessness. Thus, while assessing the amount of compensation for land expropriation, land should be assumed as if it were the private property of the landholder.
Proclamation 1161/2019 obliges the Regional States, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa City Administrations to “establish a fund for compensation payment and rehabilitation” and to develop resettlement packages that would enable displaced people to sustainably resettle.73 It also requires the urban or woreda administrations “to resettle the people displaced based on the resettlement package and allocated budget.”74 Also, the law enshrines that displaced people should be allowed to own shares where the land is expropriated for investment.75
The law obliges the Ministry of Construction and Urban Development to “support the resettlement of displaced people from urban areas,” and to assess the living conditions of farmers displaced because of urban development and provide solutions to problems discovered.76 Likewise, it requires the Ministry of Agriculture to “support the resettlement of displaced people from rural areas.”77 In a similar vein, the regional States and the two city administrations must “develop and implement resettlement packages and establish an independent entity that implements and govern this framework or appointed from this institution to bear this responsibility; and assess the living conditions of the displaced persons and provide solutions to the identified problems.”78 Resettlement and rehabilitation support is necessary even when the amount of compensation is adequate. Particularly, if a displaced farmer is not given substitute farmland s/he would face difficulty in successfully engaging in a new economic activity. Most of the displaced smallholders know to farm only. Trade or investment could be so challenging even for experienced persons.
The legislative measures introduced to improve the amount of displacement compensation and to provide robust rehabilitation support is important for the realization of the right to food and food
73 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 16.
74 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above)
75 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 16(4)
76 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 22 (1) (b) and (e).
77 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 22(2) (b).
78 Proclamation 1161 of 2019 (n 69 above) Art. 23 (2) (4).
security of displaced peri-urban farmers. The involvement of different institutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Mistry of Construction and Urban Development as well as city and district administrations in the resettlement and rehabilitation of displaced farmers shows the attention paid to the matter by policymakers. Food security depends not only on the amount of money to be paid to displaced farmers but also on continuity of income-generating economic activity. Thus, resettlement and rehabilitation supports are even more important than the amount of compensation that a displaced smallholder receives to secure their livelihoods and food security sustainably.
7. Urban Agriculture in Addis Ababa
Urban agriculture can enhance food security, improve nutrition, support poverty alleviation and greens the environment.79 In particular, urban agriculture has a huge potential to improve food security.
Assessed from the four pillars of food security, it can improve food availability by contributing to domestic food production. The experience of some countries such as Cuba shows that it is possible to satisfy 25% of the food needs of urban people from urban agriculture alone.80 It can also enhance physical and economic accessibility of adequate food. Urban farmers would feed themselves and sell excess production on the local market. This would also enable urban consumers to purchase fresh and healthy food. The accessibility and consumption of organic and fresh foods such as vegetables and dairy products, in turn, boost the prevention of micronutrient deficiency. Urban farming is also important to meet the stability of food supply. Those who have access to a small plot of land and water at their backyard can produce food throughout the year. This particularly benefits poor households who produce food for their family consumption and to generate additional income.81
The diversity of food that could be produced on urban farming improves nutrition. Using a small plot of land or even roofs, people can produce diverse foods such as vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs, milk, staple foods and fish from aquaculture. This facilities access to healthy diets containing various micronutrients such as energy, proteins, fats, and vitamins.82 Moreover, urban farming contributes to poverty alleviation in urban and peri-urban areas since it can generate income and create job opportunities. In addition to those who produce food and generate their livelihoods, others can be benefited by engaging in processing and marketing of food products.
79 C Beckford and D Campbell ‘Urban Agriculture for Food Security in the Caribbean’ in Clinton L Beckford and D Campbell (eds), Domestic Food Production and Food Security in the Caribbean: Building Capacity and Strengthening Local Food Production Systems (Palgrave Macmillan US 2013).
80 Beckford and Campbell (n 79 above).
81‘UPA ON THE POLICY AGENDA’ <http://www.fao.org/3/X6091E/X6091E.htm> accessed 13 May 2020.
82 Beckford and Campbell (n 79 above).
In addition to boosting food security, nutrition and poverty alleviation, urban agriculture is beneficial for environmental protection. It can green and beautify the otherwise sterile concrete environment of cities. Trees and plants obviously can absorb greenhouse gases and contributes towards mitigation of climate change, which improves human and environmental health and wellbeing. However, there are some environmental and health risks associated with urban agriculture including plant and animal waste, diseases and bad smells of livestock and poultry farming, and soil and water contamination.83 Nevertheless, the potential environmental risks of urban farming can be regulated and the potential benefits can be reaped.
The aforementioned benefits of urban agriculture could be gained in the Ethiopian context as well. It can contribute towards urban food security and nutrition, and poverty reduction as it can create more employment opportunities and generate additional income. The urban poor and those who were displaced from peri-urban areas can be successfully resettled and secure their livelihood.
The Addis Ababa City Government has recently recognized the potential benefits of urban farming to improve food security, generate more jobs and green and beautify the environment. As mentions earlier, it has established the Commission for Farmers and Urban Farming Development that exclusively promotes urban farming and supports displaced farmers to successfully resettle and rehabilitate. The City Government intends to expand urban agriculture by allocating most of the vacant land in the city for this purpose.84 The long-term goal is to cover at least 25 % of the city's residents`
food demand from the food to be produced in the city.85 Besides encouraging every household to produce food on their available small land or even on roofs, the City Government plans to transition 1.6 million people who currently rely on urban productive safety net program in the city to urban farming.86 Mr Takele Uma remarked that “it is possible to produce vegetables and other foods within 1.5 to 3 months. If we use proper technology, urban farming can yield food even in a shorter period”.87 The City Government plans to produce food by expanding urban agriculture in all of its 10 sub-cities.
In the Kirkos Sub-City, a group of 20 women is already given land and producing food on urban
83 D Satterthwaite, G McGranahan and C Tacoli, ‘Urbanization and Its Implications for Food and Farming’ (2010) 365 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2809.
84 OBN interview with Mr Takele Uma (Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa City Administration), Addis Ababa, May 15, 2020.
85 FBC ‘City Donates Water Pumps, Tractors to Farmers’ (Fana Broadcasting Corporate S.C, 15 May 2020)
<https://www.fanabc.com/english/city-donates-water-pumps-tractors-to-farmers/> accessed 27 May 2020.
86 FBC interview with Mr Takele Uma (Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa City Administration), Addis Ababa, May 1, 2020.
87 FBC (n 86 above).
farming. This creates job opportunity and generates income for them.88 Moreover, peri-urban farmers who were displaced due to the city’s expansion are being supported to get access to land and agricultural inputs to be fully rehabilitated and resettled by engaging in urban farming. On May 15, 2020, the City Government “donated over 200 water pumps and 5 tractors to farmers in the capital aimed to enhance agricultural productivity and food supply.”89
The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture plans to intensify the urban farming at the national level by providing necessary technical and financial support to those who will engage in the sector to improve household food security and sustain livelihoods of many urban residents. The Ministry urged urban residents to produce food not only on any amount of land available at their backyard but also on their buildings. It has a plan to introduce a technology that will support vertical urban farming.90
7.1 Lack of legal framework
Two challenges could arise from the existing urban land lease law (Proclamation No. 721/2011). First, it does not explicitly enshrine whether urban land could be allotted for the promotion of urban agriculture. Even so, it may be seen within the definition of “public interest”91 and “projects having special national significance and considered by the president of the region or the mayor of the city administration referred to the cabinet.”92As discussed earlier, urban farming is significant to reduce poverty, enhance food security and nutrition, and to mitigate climate change. It benefits not only individuals but also the general public. Thus, it is safe to argue that urban land should be given or leased out to promote urban farming as this advances the public interest.
The second challenge that stems from the law is that the possession of urban land is lease-based. The current urban land lease price is so expensive and might not be unaffordable to the urban poor who want to engage in urban farming for livelihood. Set aside the urban farming, the urban land lease price is unaffordable to most people who would seek to obtain a small plot of land for construction of residential houses in Addis Ababa.93 Thus, besides a lack of public awareness regarding the benefits of urban farming, getting access to land for this purpose is a huge challenge.
88 FBC (n 86 above).
89 FBC (n 86 above).
90 FBC interview with Oumer Hussein (Minister of the FDRE Ministry of Agriculture), Addis Ababa, May 1, 2020.
91 Proclamation No. 721/2011, Art 2(7) defines “public interest” as “the use of land defined as such by, the decision of the appropriate body inconformity with an urban plan in order to ensure the interest of the people to acquire direct or indirect benefits from the use of the land and to consolidate sustainable socio-economic development”.
92 Proclamation No. 721/2011 (n 91 above) Art 12(g).
93 LTigabu ‘Urban Land Acquisition and Social Justice in Ethiopia’ (2015) 4 Haramaya Law Review 129.
7.2 Policy challenge: the need for balancing urbanization and food production
Rapid urbanization has huge pressure on farming.94 As cities and towns expand, most arable land is converted into urban centres. This leads to a shortage of agricultural land eventually. Balancing urban development and preservation of agricultural land and the promotion of local food production could happen by design, not by chance. It requires the adoption of well-thought national land use policy and strategy.95 It appears that most fertile farmlands in Ethiopia are being converted into urban centres.96 This is evident from the capital, Addis Ababa, and its surrounding towns. They are found on fertile farmlands. As they expand even more the fertile farmland that serves to produce teff, wheat, barley, maize etc. will shrink from time to time. This will negatively affect domestic production of food, which hinder the availability and accessibility of adequate food in the country. Thus, there is a need for reforming the country's policy on urban land use planning to balance urbanization and domestic food production. It is better to build cities and towns in less productive areas even from scratch and it wise to reserve the productive land for food production. Ethiopian policymakers must design land use policy in a way that balances rapid urbanization and domestic food production.
8. Conclusion
Urban food security does not often capture the attention of African policymakers. Governments usually focus on improving food security of rural residents and invest in smallholder farming. The urban poor is often invisible to policymakers because of coexistence with middle-income and rich people in the same cities. In Addis Ababa, over 1.6 million people are chronically food-insecure and depend on urban food safety net program to survive. This means about 33% of the city’s residents lack means to access adequate food, which indicates a higher rate of urban food insecurity compared to that of the rural areas in the country.
Urbanization is posing an existential threat to peri-urban farmers. Evidence indicates that farmers displaced because of Addis Ababa’s expansion were exposed toa myriad of economic and social problems including poverty and chronic food insecurity. The government of Ethiopia has recently
94 Satterthwaite, McGranahan and Tacoli (n 83 above).
95VP Singh, BMaheshwari and B Thoradeniya ‘Options and Strategies for Balanced Development for Liveable Cities: An Epilogue’ in Basant Maheshwari, VP Singh and B Thoradeniya (eds), Balanced Urban Development: Options and Strategies for Liveable Cities (2016).
96 F Abdissa and T Degefa ‘Urbanization and Changing Livelihoods: The Case of Farmers’ Displacement in the Expansion of Addis Ababa’ in Charles Teller (ed), The Demographic Transition and Development in Africa: The Unique Case of Ethiopia (2011).
introduced some legislative and administrivia measures to resettle and rehabilitate displaced farmers.
In 2019, new land expropriation and compensation law adopted, introducing improvements concerning the g amount of displacement compensation and rehabilitation support. When properly implemented, this legislation could be instrumental to protect the right to food of displaced farmers. Furthermore, the Addis Ababa City Government has established the Commission for Farmers and Urban Farming Development to resettle and rehabilitate farmers displaced because of the city’s expansion. The Commission also promotes urban agriculture as a strategy to boost urban food security and nutrition in Addis Ababa, which is a good beginning in the right direction. Urban farming can create more job opportunities, generate incomes, enhance food security and nutrition, and green the city. In particular, it can help resettle and rehabilitate farmers displaced from peri-urban areas and those who migrated from rural to urban areas, as they are familiar with farming.
Achieving urban food security should not be taken as the government’s discretion or charity. It is part of the country’s legal obligation to progressively realize the right to adequate food. International human rights treaties that Ethiopia has ratified, such as the ICESCR, impose duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food of everyone. Thus, the country should embrace a rights-based approach to realize the right to food in both rural and urban areas. Urban farming should be mainstreamed in urban land law and policy. The government should raise the awareness of urban residents to produce food at their backyards and even on roofs of their homes. Promoting urban farming, however, is not the only way to ensure food security. The government should also enhance the purchasing power of urban dwellers by creating more gainful job opportunities and facilitating food affordability.
