Top official rejects criticism of land policy

Ethiopia's top economic advisor rejected criticism on Wednesday that the government's state-owned land policy created insecurity among farmers. Newai Gebre-Ab, chief economic advisor to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said farmers continued to invest in their land despite government ownership. Ethiopia has been criticised both at home and abroad for failing to privatise land. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has pressed the government to end its hold on land, arguing private ownership by farmers would boost food production. Newai told journalists: "Today farmers are digging water tanks - they spend money and effort digging water tanks in the thousands. "It is not because the government has pressed them saying ‘you dig water tanks otherwise we will not give you food aid’. So if they feel insecure about the land that they hold they will not dig water tanks." His comments came at the launch of a new Ethiopia Strategy Support Programme (ESSP) - an initiative to improve and strengthen the country's rural-development strategy through research improving knowledge and data collection. The government has placed the agriculture sector and rural economy at the heart of Ethiopia’s economic development - and as the main engine of growth for the fledgling economy. The lives of more than 80 percent of the country's 70 million people are dependent on small-scale farming, making a living through rain dependent agriculture. The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which is developing the ESSP, aims to close policy and knowledge gaps in government’s decision-making efforts. Dr Peter Hazell, a director at IFPRI, said ESSP intended to end rigid ideology surrounding development and establish better data and knowledge to refine policy procedures. "Ethiopia should not have to rely rather exclusively on the analysis on the World Bank or the USAID," Hazell said. "They invest a lot more in analysis than the country does and that creates an uneven playing field. This programme envisages an Ethiopia that has much stronger national capacity for doing policy analysis and increasing its knowledge base so it can take its own positions and is in a strong position to argue with its investors.” Newai added that better policy and closing knowledge gaps was crucial for overcoming complex problems surrounding its rural development strategy. "Ethiopia has an immense problem of food security, so in the first instance we have to tackle food security to bring about a reasonable level of food self-sufficiency," he said. "But that would not be enough on its own. Agricultural development also has to be an engine for growth in the country." He said the challenge facing the government was ensuring credit for farmers, enabling access to technology and establishing the infrastructure for effective markets. Newai also rejected critics who have argued the country could never kick-start development relying on small-scale subsistence farmers. "If you were to exclude 80 percent of the population you cannot have effective growth or development in this country," he said.