BY GETACHEW MINAS
Poverty reduction is a core component of development in low income countries. Also, agricultural and rural development is a major component of economic growth and poverty reduction strategy. This calls for a large-scale commercialization of agriculture, with emphasis on the promotion of rural non-farm enterprises.
Thus, the rural-urban linkage becomes necessary to facilitate specialized support services for differentiated agro-ecological zones. This would ensure food security for all and would tackle vulnerability through strengthened safety nets programs.
Food security is priority for people of Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s agricultural sector accounts for 45 percent of national GDP and 85 percentof its exports. According to the World Bank, agriculture also provides 85 percent of employment, and 90 percent of the poor depend on the sector for their livelihood.
Along with agricultural development, there is also a strong focus on promoting gender equality in order to “unleash” the potential of women. The Ethiopian Government builds on a series of policies that support macro-economic framework, liberalized markets for agricultural products, and a widespread agricultural extension program that support women.
Ethiopia promotes poverty reduction program which focuses on enhancing the productive capacity of smallholder farmers. This includes promotion of crop diversification, market-based production and food security. Full support is provided for improving the “fragile” livelihoods of pastoral communities.
Thus, focus on agricultural development and growth has been strong, stemming from an increased area under cultivation and productivity improvements in staple crops in pockets of the country. However, the WB reveals that the agriculture sector remains low-valued and subsistence oriented, subject to frequent climatic shocks.
Rural poverty and vulnerability are pervasive throughout the country with an estimated 45 percent of the rural population living below the nationally defined poverty line, compared to about 37 percent in urban areas. Poverty is severe in rural areas, especially in food insecure regions. These regions have agro-climatic conditions, with highly limited market access, poor infrastructure, remoteness and land degradation.
These conditions make it difficult, if not impossible, to overcome poverty in the country. Moreover, rural development program designed to overcome or reverse rural vulnerability may reduce poverty. This program may include agro-diversification, floriculture, horticulture and cattle-raising. It may also contribute to exports of produces that earn foreign exchange, contributing to productive safety net in Ethiopia.
Rural risk aversion
The income of the rural poor in Ethiopia is far from the poverty line, which causes them to be risk averters. They avoid the adoption of new agricultural technologies as they want to avoid the unknown.
The rural poor farmers would prefer to see the practical outcome of new techniques of production tried on the plots located elsewhere. Poor farmers who have been exposed to severe shocks due to drought, irregular rainfall and shortage of inputs such as seeds and farm implements do rarely respond to new farming techniques or tools.
They are also faced with health-related shocks, including death or illness of head of a family or spouse. They also confront market-related shocks, such as inability to sell outputs, fall in output prices, difficulty in obtaining inputs and increases in input prices.
These factors force the peasants to avert risk. Rural households that live in pastoral or drought prone areas, such Afar and Somali regions, are particularly vulnerable to risky weather conditions. They are susceptible to shocks as a result of deprivation which is reflected in the accelerating rates of rural-urban migration.
People seek to escape ecological destruction, drought, and famine. In areas where these problems are greatest, as in the Northern Ethiopia, scarcity of arable land combined with population growth has led to a surplus of labor force.
This forced laborers to seek better employment opportunities in urban areas. This rural-urban migration is largely a response to “push” factors related to ecological degradation and poverty in rural areas rather than a response to “pull” factors from urban areas.
It has also been exacerbated by major socio-political disruptions in recent decades as Ethiopia has experienced a succession of governments. These governments have been characterized by stark ideological differences, each involving substantial population movement within the country.
This movement reflected rural poverty and vulnerability of women in Ethiopia. It also showed that women played a significant role in agricultural productivity.
However, they suffered from unequal access to resources and capacity building opportunities on a number of levels. Studies show that female-headed households are more vulnerable to shocks such as illness, death of household member, drought, flood, price shocks, job loss, or death of livestock.
Studies point out Ethiopian women to be more likely to rely on loans or gifts from relatives. On the other hand men are better able to depend on sale of livestock or crops. Overall there are significant differences in human capital levels between men and women.
Literacy rates for rural women are just 19 percent compared to 43 percent for men, while the gender gap is closing in primary school enrolment rates overtime in rural areas.
Women appear to suffer from poorer health, with the prevalence of self-reported illness higher than men. In times of crisis, women are also likely to be disproportionately exposed to economic and social problems during the previous three regimes. Currently, the government favors pro-poor development program that favors women.
Role of rural women
Women do participate in the labor force in different sectors of the economy. Their participation is sufficient enough to support themselves and their families, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the WB report, they contribute more than half of the labor for crop and livestock production.
But, there are marked gender differences in terms of access to resources. In this regard, studies have shown that the local labor markets are segmented by gender, with women systematically earning lower rates. It is found out that men participate in off-farm labor markets more than women do. This difference is also reflected in differences in the income they earned.
In the rural setting where land is owned by the State, land tenure system has brought about important changes in the ability of Ethiopian women to secure land in their own right. However, studies show that the implementation of these changes has varied significantly across regional states.
Other studies also found that following a low-cost, rapid, and transparent community land registration process, female heads of households could rent out land. The tenure security increased their confidence in doing so. Overall, however, women’s rights, and that of men, remain limited as they are entitled only to usufruct privileges.
Women who are separate from their husbands are likely to lose their houses and property. However, when a husband dies, other family members often claim the land over his widow due to social institutional injunctions and rulings. Moreover, while female headed households with land can have access to public loans, married women need to secure the permission of their husbands first.
Women are further constrained by cultural norms about the gendered division of agricultural labor. There are two important barriers in this regard which shape the limited implementation of women’s legal right to control land. The first is lack of ownership of oxen with which to plow the land and cultural taboos that constrain women from plowing and sowing, except tilling, cultivating and weeding.
There are major gender biases in terms of access to agricultural extension services and inputs. While Ethiopia has one of the highest ratios of agricultural extension staff to farmers globally, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), pointed out that female access to extension services is relatively low.
A third of women had weekly visits by Development Agents while another third had never been visited, compared to 50 and 11 percent of men, respectively. Key reason for lower access to extension service is thought to include greater shortage of time and thus higher opportunity costs for women.
Lower educational attainment and lack of empowerment, along with cultural barriers to the work and mobility of women may reduce female demand for extension services.
There are also other important constraints, including lack of targets regarding female participation. There are a small number of female Development Agents and inadequate attention given to the training needs of married women.
Married women are assumed to work in horticulture and manage small livestock; their training is tailored accordingly. In reality they work alongside their husbands, contributing agricultural labor to a significant degree. They should have received equal extensionservices and credit for inputs.
Conclusion
Risk aversion is a natural tendency of the poor people who develop a network of safety around their families. The breadwinner or head of the family assumes responsibility for meeting the basic needs of the family members. Family heads, especially female breadwinners face problems while trying to satisfy the needs of their families.
Traditional, male dominated societies display aversion, repugnance and distaste to females who aspire to raise their children in a responsible manner. Also, cultural taboos block aspirant females from attaining their ambition of fulfilling dignified and honorable goals of life.
In Africa, including Ethiopia, there is a new and current trend to motivate gender productivity. They are given access to extension services, subsidies and credits for the purchase of agricultural inputs.
However, promoting female education is the key to success both in the rural and urban areas.Although gender machineries have been established at all government levels in Ethiopia, investment in capacity building efforts for staff working in these areas is not adequate. Resourcing and integration into decision-making and planning processes of the rural staff has been insufficient.
It is absolutely necessary to earmark fund, both domestic and external, for capacity building of staffs assigned to rural development. The staffs are only intermediaries for advancing the capacity of the rural people, with emphasis on gender equity.
Ensuring equity and equality of citizens is the secret of success in the reduction of poverty and risk aversion. Poverty reduction is also based on peace and development in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian herald January 1/2021
