PART ONE: RURAL SOCIOLOGY

Chapter One
Subject matter of rural sociology

1. Definition
Rural sociology is specialized field of sociolgy which is primarly concerned with rural people
and the connditions under which they live and work and the natural resources and enviroment
that are typical of non-urban. The field of Rural Sociology is a sub-field of sociology, the study
of human societies and social groups. Rural sociologists focus on the study of social life in rural
and non-metropolitan areas domestically and internationally. They continue to develop theory
and knowledge and produce information relevant to public policy and local development.

Rural Sociology research focuses on environmental well-being, sustainable development of

natural resources, social and community quality of life, and diffusion and impacts of
technologies. Much of the research involves the Third World.
1. According to Sanderson, “Rural sociology is the sociology of rural life in the rural
environment”.
2. Bertand says, “Rural sociology is that study of human relationships in rural
environment”.
3. T.L. Smith, “Such sociological facts and principles as are derived from the study of rural
social relationships may be referred to as rural sociology”.
4. F.S Chapin, “The sociology of rural life is a study of rural population, rural social
organization, and the rural social processes operative in rural society”.
5. A.R Desai defines rural sociology as, “the science of rural society….It is the science of
laws of the development of rural society”.

The above definitions clearly justify that rural sociology studies the social interactions,
institutions and activities and social changes that take place in the rural society. It studies the
rural social organizations, structure and set up. In other words, it can be said that rural sociology
acts as a reflection of the rural social life and provides the norms and values that govern the rural
society. It provides a clear picture of the rural population and the difference they possess from
the urban population.

Rural sociology is a field of sociology that is connected with the study of social life in rural areas
and it is an active field in much of the world. Rural Sociology, as indicated by its name, studies
rural society, rural social structures and institutions. The rural society is primarily dependent on
agriculture and hence rural sociology also concerns itself on the peasant society. Rural sociology
is centered on the rural community life. There is a stark difference between the social structure,

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processes, social dynamics and social control in rural society. Hence, there is a difference
between studying urban society and rural society, rural sociology studies the latter. Thus, rural
sociology has been specially designed to study the rural phenomena and it is a systematic study
of the varied aspects of the rural society. It is the study of the rural social networks and how they
operate for the smooth functioning of the society. The rural society is generally rooted in the
villages, and rural sociology studies the facets of the villages, the way it functions, the various
problems it faces and the how it tackles to face the imminent challenges. Rural sociology offers
viable solutions and ways of mitigating the problems that found over the villages.

1.2 The Concept of Rural and Difference between Rural and Urban

1.2.1 What is rural?

As we all know that rural is a sparsely populated area in which people depend on
agricultural land and other natural resources. In rural area, population is spatially dispersed.
It is an area that is far from the seat of the government.

In general, a rural area is a geographic area that is located outside cities and towns.The
Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services defines the word "rural" as encompassing "...all population, housing, and territory
not included within an urban area. Whatever is not urban is considered rural."

Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas
are commonly rural, though so are others such as forests. Different countries have varying
definitions of "rural" for statistical and administrative purposes.There are various
catagorization of rural sciety
1. Based on population size: Different countries use different criteria to define rural areas:
• USA uses less than 2500 people
• Japan uses less than 50,000 people
• Norway uses 200 or less people
• Canada uses 1000 or less people
• Switzerland uses 10,000 or less people
2. Based on economic production: Most people who engaged in agrarian productivity are
considered as rural and those people more than 50% who engaged in no farm activity
considered as urban.
3. Degree of isolation from or inability to participate in the programs of larger society-
Access to services such as:
 Level of Education, quality of medical services, employment,
 Transportation and social services.

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4. Administrative and legal definition: those areas defined as rural by the state or
government as rural is considered as rural.
Note that: In Ethiop ia, three main criteria are assumed to classify rural and urban according to Ethiopian
land lease Proclamation No.721/2011: urban;
1. have municipality
2. 50% and more non -agriculture activity
3. More than 2000 residents; those areas who do not fulfill those three criteria are included
under rural areas.

1.2.2 Characteristics of rural community that distinguish them from urban

community

Size of the Community: Size refers to areas actually inhabited rather than the total area of
land available for use. Rural communities are usually smaller than urban communities.The
village communities are smaller in area than the urban communities. As the village
communities are small, the population is also low.

Density of Population: As rural areas have larger expanse of land with relatively small
population, the population density (i.e. the number of people per unit area of land) is low. As
the density of population is low, the people have intimate relationships and face-to-face
contacts with each other. In a village, everyone knows everyone.

Agriculture is the Main Occupation:Agriculture is the fundamental occupation of the rural

people and forms the basis of rural economy. A farmer has to perform various agricultural
activities for which he needs the cooperation of other members. Usually, these members are
from his family. Thus, the members of the entire family share agricultural activities. That is
the reason why Lowry Nelson has mentioned that farming is a family enterprise.

Close Contact with Nature: The rural people are in close contact with nature as most of
their daily activities revolve around the natural environment. This is the reason why a ruralite
is more influenced by nature than an urbanite. The villagers consider land as their real mother
as they depend on it for their food, clothing and shelter.

Homogeneity of Population: The village communities are homogenous in nature. Most of

their inhabitants are connected with agriculture and its allied occupations, though there are
people belonging to different castes, religions and classes.

Social Stratification: In rural society, social stratification is a traditional characteristic,

based on caste, age, gender.

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Social Solidarity: The degree of social solidarity is greater in villages as compared to urban
areas. Common experience, purposes, customs and traditions form the basis of unity in the
villages.
Social Integration: This refers to a patterned relationship of one person with another
through expressions of ideas, thought and action aimed at achieving concrete goals. Social
contacts are greater in quantity, quality and variety in urban than in rural areas. In rural area,
interaction takes place at water sites, market days, religious worship areas, cultural, marriage
and naming ceremonies. The quality and type of interaction among the urban dwellers is
much more than that of rural dwellers.
Social mobility: This is the movement of an individual from one social class or group to
another. People may move vertically from a lower to higher or from higher to lower class via
specific achievements through success in economic pursuits, education, political change, or
job creation. Improvements in social infrastructure are bound to be more in the urban areas
than in the rural areas. Social mobility is rather slow in rural areas.
Social Control: The behavior of individuals in the rural areas tends to be guided more by the
internalization of societal norms and values. Informal means such as ostracism and gossips
are used or applied to effect control on violation while instant justice is determined in cases
of the violation of mores. Urban areas tend to depend more on formal institutions such as the
police, traffic wardens among others for the maintenance of law and ordered.

1.3 Scope or Subject-Matter of Rural Sociology

In comparison to other social sciences, Rural Sociology is a novel branch of Sociology and is a
separate science that possesses its own subject matter and method of study. By scope of the
discipline, it is meant that what Rural Sociology refers to what it studies. To draw attention on
the scope, N.L. Sims says, “The field of Rural Sociology is the study of association among
people living by or immediately dependent upon agriculture. Open country and village groupings
and groups behavior are its concern.”
According to Lowry Nelson, “The scope of Rural Sociology is the description and analysis of
progress of various groups as they exist in the rural environment. In the words of Bertrand and
his associates: “In its broadest definition Rural Sociology is the study of human relationship in
rural environment.” On account of the opinions given by Sims, Nelson and Bertrand, it is
observed that the scope of Rural Sociology revolves around rural people, their livelihood and
social relationship in rural environment.
Though it studies society from the rural perspective, its main aim is concentrated on rural lives.
The subjects that are included within the scope are very comprehensive in nature and we can say
that its boundary is varying large. The scope of Rural Sociology may be clear from the analysis
of the following subjects.

Apart from studying the rural society, Rural Sociology also studies its nature and primary
components from the structural and functional stances. The most crucial objective of rural

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sociology is to study rural social life. Rural social life encompasses the behavior patterns, web of
relationship, social interactions, standard of living and socio-economic conditions of the rural
people. Therefore, the scope of Rural Sociology expands where the boundary of Rural Society is
expanded.

Rural Population: The population residing in the geographical rural area is the basic essence of
Rural Sociology. The discipline studies the nature, characteristics, size, density and distribution
of rural population from various angles. Rural Sociology aims at the study of the factors of
growth of population, its evil effects of Rural Society, rural –urban migration for the greater
interest of the country at large. It also tries to understand the behavioral patterns, prevailing
customs and folklores that dominate the day to day lives of the rural population.

Rural Community: Rural community is considered as one of the primordial organizations of

mankind. Hence, Rural Sociology is chiefly concerned with the origin, nature, characteristics,
social attributes and human ecology of rural community. It also studies the homogenous
trajectory of the rigid and conservative nature of hither to existing customs, traditions, folkways,
mores, norms, values and so on in rural community.

Rural Social Organization: Social organization plays the backbone of every society as well as
social life. The most imperative function of Rural Sociology, therefore, is to offer fundamental
knowledge about rural social organization. Rural Social organization envelops the spiritual lives,
religious activities, sacred relationship and divine notion of rebirth, Karmaphala etc. of the rural
folk which intensely affects the entire rural social life. Rural sociology, thus, for the betterment
of rural life, studies the future prospectus of rural social organization and governing laws for its
development.

Rural Social Institution: Rural social institutions imply the known figures of processes that
prevail among the relations between the rural people. Rural sociology, thus, studies the structure,
characteristics and functions of rural social institutions. Rural social institutions comprise family,
marriage, kinship, religion, caste. Rural Sociology studies the sociological significance of these
institutions in the rural context.

Rural Economy: Agriculture is the backbone of rural economy and majority of the rural
population are absorbed in it. They directly depend on agriculture for their livelihood and
sustenance. Rural Sociology, therefore, studies the causes liable for the failure of agriculture and
suggests various measures for the development of agriculture in villages. Besides, the acceptance
of new agricultural technology among the farming centers, upgrading of old farming methods,
formation of open markets and providing agricultural training to the farmers are the vital areas of
the study of rural society.

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Rural social Process: Rural Sociology also studies the two process of rural social interaction,
namely, conjunctive and disjunctive. Rural conjunctive process includes co-operation,
accommodation and assimilation. Rural disjunctive process, on the other hand, comprises
competition and conflict. Thus, the nature, characteristics and social importance of these
processes are to be appropriately considered by the scope of Rural Sociology.

Rural Religion: Religion plays a predominant role in the rural society, considered as the soul of
rural people and it is regarded as the chief quintessence of rural life. The rural people blindly
follow the religious ideas and values; consider worshipping as a prime duty. Rural Sociology, in
this context, and studies the concept and social importance of rural religion and its impact on
rural society.
Rural Culture: Culture refers to that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, moral
law, art, custom and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society. Rural
culture is firmly rooted in rigid and conservative dogmas and it is generally very stagnant in
nature. It includes old customs, tradition, folkways, mores, norms, values and so on. Rural
Sociology studies the complexities of rural culture, its different structural organizations, cultural
patterns, cultural traits and cultural lag in the rural contexts.

Rural Social Problems: One of the important contents of rural sociology includes the study of
problem engulfed in the rural life. These problems are centered on socio-economic conditions,
political, cultural ethos and value based. The problems generally are poverty, unemployment,
population growth, illiteracy, casteism, untouchability etc. Rural Sociology, therefore, studies the
causes and evil effects of these problems and also suggests measures for their eradication for the
greater interests of the country at large. As these problems are rooted in the rural societies that
are also diverse from place to place, their causes, nature and remedies vary from on one another.
Rural sociology tries draw in the similarities as well as the differences between the problems that
stem from various existing issues and also the discipline tries to provide viable remedies to it.

Rural Social Control: Social control is the control of society over an individual. In Rural
Society, social control is in formal and rigid in nature. Rural Sociology considerably studies the
informal means and agencies such as religions, customs, folkways, mores, norms etc, of social
control. In rural society, the imperative primary groups like family and neighborhood play a vital
role in social control.

Rural Social Change: Social change is meant only such alterations as occur in social
organization, that is, structure and functions of society. Of late, the rural society is on the path of
social change. Due to the impact of money modernizing forces, Rural Society is undergoing
incredible transformations in the twentieth century. In order to pace up social change in the rural
areas and also keep the momentum going, Rural Sociology undertakes necessary steps. Rural

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Sociology also studies the diverse factors responsible for social changes in a systematic way. It
also tries to provide possible solutions for any change ignited derailment in rural social life.

Rural Urban Contrast: The study of rural society remains incomplete unless the study of rural
urban contrast is done in a proper and scientific manner. Both the village and city,
hypothetically, are the two contrasting modes of community life. Rural Sociology studies the
rural-urban contrast on the basis of social, economic, religious and cultural point of view.
Besides, rural sociology also draws attention on the comparative study of these two societies. As
a result, the concept of rural society and social institutions can be clear by this contrasting
analysis.

Rural Planning and Reconstruction: Rural planning and reconstruction are very much
necessary for under developed societies. In this context, the poor and backward condition of
Ethiopian rural society requires planning and reconstruction in a systematic and planned manner.
Rural Society is engulfed in plenty of issues and social problems. Therefore, for the eradication
of these problems and for the betterment of rural life, proper planning and reconstruction should
be made by the state as well the central government. A.R. Desai says, Rural Sociology studies all
these subjects and provides proper guidelines in this direction.
It is obvious from the above analysis that the scope or subject matter or Rural Sociology, no
doubt is very immense. Though, it is the youngest and progressive science, yet it studies the
various aspects of rural society as well as rural life to a great extent.

1.4 Origin and Development of Rural Sociology

Sociology joined the family of social sciences relatively at a later stage i.e. in the 19th century,
for it had no independent existence before. In fact, sociology began to emerge as an independent
and separate discipline only around the middle of the 19th century. It took almost fifty years
before the subject began to assume scientific character that it has today. Prior to the middle of the
18th century, the study of society was dominated by social philosophers rather than by social
scientists. These philosophers were less concerned about what society actually like, than what
they thought it ought to be like. But in a relatively short period this emphasis was completely
reversed. Hence study of society became more scientific than philosophical.
The main contributors to the development of rural sociology are-Charles Sanderson,
Burtherfield, Ernast Burnholme, John Morris Gillin, Franklin H. Giddings and Thomas Nixon
Carver.
As a systematic science, rural sociology emerged in United States of America and the
American society was facing severe disintegration from the period of 1890 to 1920. The
problems included mass poverty, economic crises , and no land rights with the cultivators etc.
Such problems led to mass migration of the people from the rural hinterlands to the cities. As a
result, there was severe shortage of food grains and also there was fear that the entire rural
society was facing a threatening decay. It was President Roosevelt who, through the appointment

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of 'Country Life Commission' gave a good encouragement to the development to the rural
sociology in 1908. The report of this Commission encouraged the studies of rural society. The
Country Life Commission (CLC) appointed in America to study the degrading situation of the
rural society provided relevant data from the field and the findings were referred to the American
Sociological Society in 1912. Reputed sociologists, such as James Michel Williams, warren H.
Wilson and Newell L. Sims contributed extensively to the study of American rural society.
During those days, the rural sociologists used statistical and historical data along with field
interview to find out empirical reality of the US country life. The works on rural sociology in
America were discussed from humanist viewpoint and the solutions that it offered were highly
revered in national level policy planning. The way general sociology emerged due to the
problems in general life, similarly rural life problems necessitated the emergence of rural
sociology.

The Great Depression of 1930 provided another stimulus to the growth of rural sociology.
In 1937, 'Rural Sociological Society' was formed. It started publishing a professional journal
'Rural Sociology' containing results of rural sociological research. C. J. Galpin of University of
Wisconsin developed techniques for defining and delimiting the rural community. His approach
is still popular today.

The Second World War gave yet another fillip to the growth of rural sociology. The
heavydestruction and damage to human society caused by the war demanded reconstruction. The
reconstruction work brought further encouragement to the science. By 1958 there were about
1000 professional rural sociologists in America. Rural sociology crossed the boundaries of
America and became popular in Europe. A European Society for Rural Sociology was formed in
1957, and a similar organization was started in Japan also. In developing countries, the role of
the rural sociologists is primarily in the applied field of more effective planning and operation of
rural community development programmes.

The birth of rural sociology was due to the requirement of the study of different conditions
and as pects of rural life and the prevailing problems that plagues the rural society. Earlier,
many social sciences have strived to provide viable solutions for the challenges found in the rural
society but have not been able to provide viable solutions to them. In order to provide a
discipline for serious and focused study of the rural society, rural sociology was born. According
to Charles R. Hoffer, “Like all sciences, Rural Sociology developed in response to a need. It is
an elementary fact in the realm of scientific thought that a new science comes into existence
whenever phenomena confronting the human mind are not, or cannot be understood satisfactorily
by the existing disciplines or sciences”. Though rural society exists since a long long time, but
rural sociology had then not emerged due the static and unchanged nature of the rural social life.
In recent years, the components of dynamism and change have escalated the capability to
comprehend the complex problems of life.

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During the 18th century, there was a major shift in the scientific inventions and discoveries
that helped in transforming human thinking and life. The exponential growth of
industrialization and urbanization caused issues such as slums and overcrowding in the cities.
Such grave concerns diverted the attention towards the villages and the migrating population.
Rural people faced a lot of challenges and difficulties. Eventually, the streams of thought by the
thinkers focused on issues such as poverty, unemployment, health and hygiene, education and
disorganization etc. of rural people.

1.5Why we study rural sociology

Every study has certain aims and objects. These aims and objects are in consonance with the
aims and objects of the society. No study is without aim. This is true of the rural sociology as
well. One of the most important aims of the study of the Rural Sociology as seen in the study of
the Rural Society or social complexities in the rural life. Professor Desai has explained this aim
in a very detailed manner as reproduced below:- “The prime objective of Rural Sociology should
be to make a scientific, systematic and comprehensive study of the rural social organisation of its
structure, function and objective tendencies of development and on the basis of such study to
discover the laws of its development’’.

Since every science, social or natural, has its aims in the discovery of the hitherto hidden laws of
development domain and the nature of society. The basic task of Rural Sociology is to discover
the law of development of Rural Society.The aims of the study of Rural Sociology may therefore
be enumerated as follows:

1. To study in a scientific and systematic manner, the Rural Society and its various aspects
and complexities.
2. To study the structure, functions and objective tendencies of development of the Rural
Society.
3. To discover the laws of the development of the Rural Society.
4. To make a scientific study of the Rural Society in order to help in the task of planning for
the reconstruction of the rural social life.

The practical value of the study of rural sociology is widely recognized today. As long as the
villages and the rural society assume importance, the rural sociology shall continue to acquire
importance. The value of rural sociology can be understood by the following points:

1. Rural Population is in Majority: The world's is more rural than urban. More than two-
third of people of the world live in villages. It is the village that forms the basis of
society. Rural sociology is inevitable for the study of the majority of the population.
2. Intimate Relationship between the Land and Man: Man is born out of land and his entire
culture depends on it. Land has been the part of and parcel of human life. Progress starts

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 from the village. The type of land partially conditions the type of society and the
opportunities for human development. This close relationship between man and land has
also been recognized by economists and political scientists.
3. Villages and Rural Life form the Source of urban Population: Citiesnormally grow out of
towns and villages. No city can come into existence all of a sudden without having a rural
background. A village, when improved and thickly populated, becomes a town or city.
Thus it is the village population that forms the source of urban life.
4. Psychological Approach to the Rural Life: Rural progress, rural reconstruction or
improvement of rural societies is possible only when the people have correct idea about
the rural way of life and problems. Rural sociology touches upon the rural psychology
and provides a good understanding of the rural people and their society.

Rural Sociology is a developing science which is very useful for Ethiopia, its main aim and
object being making a scientific study of the Rural Society which would enable the country to
make real progress, since the country is predominantly agrarian and majority of its population
resides in villages. Dependence on agriculture forms the fundamental base of the Ethiopian rural
life and it also acts as a backbone for the rural population. It not has an economic role to play but
also helps in shaping the moral, psychological and ideological life of the rural people. But an
urban bias has always been noticed among the scholars and researchers who have hitherto
focused their attention on the study of phenomena and the challenges faced in the urban society.
1.6 Nature of Rural Sociology

The nature of Rural Sociology generally implies whether it can be categorized under natural
sciences or under arts. August Comte, the father of Sociology, called Sociology as the queen of
sciences. Some sociologists have viewed sociology in terms of natural sciences. According to
Pierre Bourdieu, “Sociology seems to have all the properties that define as science. All
sociologists worthy of the name agree on a common heritage of concepts, methods and
verification procedures”. Most of the sociologists opine that Sociology has all the characteristics
of science and it is, no doubt, a science. Since rural sociology is a specialized branch of
Sociology, therefore it is also a science.

Nevertheless, before furthering to elaborate rural sociology as a science, it is essential to know

what science is. Science is a method and way of looking at things consisting of systematic steps
like observation, collection and classification of data, hypothesis, testing, theory and conclusion.
Science possesses six basic ingredients.
Firstly, science employs the scientific method. The scientific method is a systematic, organized
series of steps that ensures maximu m objectivity and consistency in researching a problem.
Secondly; it is a study of facts. Thirdly scientific principles are universal. Fourthly, scientific
laws are vertical. Its validity can be examined at any time and it proves true in every place.
Fifthly, science discovers the cause-effect relationship in its subject-matter and in this connection

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provides universal and valid laws. Finally, science can make predictions on the basis of universal
and valid laws relating to the cause-effect relationship in any subject. The function of science is
based upon a faith in causality. The nature of Rural Sociology as a science can be examined on
the following grounds.

a) Scientific Methodology: Rural Sociology utilizes scientific methodology and hence, all the
methods used in rural sociology are scientific in nature. These methods are observation,
interview, case study, schedule, and questionnaire etc. In these methods, the first step is
collection of data through observation. On a stipulated data the results are brought out on the
basis of accepted data. The validity of these results is verified and theories are formulated.
Such rigorous methodology is assumed to produce dependable theoretical constructs.
b) Facts Accumulation: Rural Sociology is always founded on factual study. It studies rural
social relationship and activities in a factual manner. It makes a scientific study of facts,
general principles and theories involved in them. It is also a known principle that science
grows on the data collected from the field and that a sociologist stands on the shoulders of
other sociologists as said by Robert Merton.
c) Empiricism: Unlike natural sciences that carry out experiments in the closed laboratory for
measurement and verification, rural sociology uses the empirical method in the form of
fieldwork. For a rural sociologist going to the field carries immense significance as it helps
him/her to gather relevant data on the basis of which he will formulate theories and also it
provides an occasion for experimentation, observation and verification.
d) Precision and Accuracy: Two of the important features of scientific investigation are
precision and accuracy. The data that is collected should reflect the exact existing situation at
the time of observation. The principles of rural sociology need to be proved true when
verified. Their validity can be examined by any one.
e) Discovery of cause-effect relationship: Like Sociology, Rural Sociology also discovers a
cause effect relationship between the phenomena. For example, in the modern society, the
rate of divorce increases rapidly due to the family disorganization. Similarly, due to the swift
growth of population the rate of poverty and unemployment increases in the rural society. In
these examples, family disorganization and population growth are two causes and divorce as
well as poverty and unemployment are their effects. Rural Sociology has discovered a cause
effect relation between the phenomena and population growth and divorce. Thus Rural
Sociology finds the causal relationship in social disorganization and other incidents, activities
and relationship in rural society and then forms laws concerning them.
f) Predictions: Eventually, on the basis of cause-effect relationship rural sociology becomes
capable of anticipating the future and make predictions concerning social relationship,
activities, incidents etc. For example, if disorganization in the families becomes pronounced,
it can make predictions concerning the number of divorces and many other things. Knowing
the cause-effect relationship, rural sociology can conclude ‘what will be’ on the basis of
‘what is’.

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1.7 Tools of Data Collection in Rural Sociology

In the study of rural society and rural social life, rural sociologists use various sociological data
collection methods or tools.
Rural Survey: A survey is always known as holistic in nature and it studies the village in its
totality. The surveys generally aim at studying all the existing and already existent facets of the
village. They study the socio-economic changes that the villages have undergone due to internal
or external factors.
Village Monographs: The Census of India has habitually published village monographs every
decade. The monographs basically portray the overall scenario in the villages and are non-
intensive in nature. The researchers conduct a casual study of the village life and write up
narratives on the villages as they exist and operate.
Observation: One of the most basic and essential methods to collect data from the village is
observation. This method helps in making the researcher understand the occurring phenomena all
by himself (i.e.in his presence). There are two types of observations: Participant and non-
participant, while in the former the researcher identifies himself with the village, in the latter he
doesn’t participate in any of the activities and behaves like an outsider.
Interview: the technique of interview is essential because often it is not possible to understand
the phenomenon just by observing it. Many a times, it becomes difficult for a non-villager
researcher to simply reach to a conclusion just by observation. He needs to sit and ask questions
to the villagers to comprehend the intricacies of a village social life and the underlying norms
that govern the behavioral patterns of the rural people.
Case Studies: A deeper and intensive study of a village is done through case studies. By
conducting case studies, the researchers try to find out any unique occurrence in the village that’s
stands out from the rest of the findings. The case studies also help in throwing insights into the
main study or body of work.

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 CHAP TER TWO

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY

Introduction
The idea of rural presupposes the presence of urban. The rural- urban dichotomy is not recent in
origin .Early social thinkers were also preoccupied with the notion of urban, rural division even
before the emergence of sociology because they are “fundamental Social Categories”. Plato gave
a full focus for the two notions. His ideal republic was more or less compatible with our
description of rural society today. His description of oligarchic society resembles to the
characteristics of urban society. In the middle ages, St Augustine and Ibn Khaldun used similar
comparison to make distinction between urban and rural community. The similar case is
observed in the work of Hegel. During the 1920’s rural, urban specialists emerged in sociology.
To sum up:
a. Plato’s two types of societies:
– Republic (personality traits/social regime) - rural
– Oligarchic society and man – urban
b. St Augustine’ description of two social types:
– Church and city of god – characteristic of rural St Augustine’ description of two
social types
– Society and man – urban
c. Khaldun also employed similar approach like
d. Hegel adopted similar approach:
– Family-society - rural
– Civic society - urban
Smith says that “rural and urban do not exist of themselves in a vacuum…that the principal
characteristics of each may be found shedding in to, blending\mixing with the essential
characteristics of the other …Rather than consisting of mutually exclusive categories ,rural and
urban the general society seems to resemble a spectrum in which the most remote back ground
,sub rural settlement blend in to rural and then gradually through all degrees of rural and sub
urban into most urban and hyper –urban way of living .” It means, it is better to see the rural and
urban in continuum than a dictum because the two share common characteristics. Four
important theoretical orientations trying to explain rural –urban differences and relations are;
1. Traditional-modern dichotomy/rural-urban dichotomy
2. Rural-urban continuum
3. Political-economy of rural people and
4. Innovation-diffusion- adoption model

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2.1 . Traditional-modern dichotomy
Traditional and Modern Societies: A Comparative Look

“Traditional” refers to those societies or elements of societies that are small-scale, are derived
from indigenous and often ancient cultural practices. “Modern” refers to those practices that
relate to the industrial mode of production or the development of large-scale societies.These co-
exist in the world today.

There is some controversy among rural sociologists as to whether rural –urban differences occur
in dichotomous fashion or along a continuum. Proponents of rural-urban dichotomy theory hold
that differences between the two populations are categorical in nature and direct opposition to
one another.
Some of the classical sociologists like Durkheim, Tonnies, Weber, Maine believed that the rural
is traditional in terms of cultural practices,religious rituals,mode of behaving,but the urban is
modern.Maine gave a contrast between rural and urban base on the assignment of roles and
position .
He argued that;
 Societies based on ascription and traditions are predominantly rural. But
 Societies based on achieved status and contract are urban.
According to Ferdinand Tonnies(GemeinschaftGesellschaft according to Nature of relationship)1 , a
society which is based on blood, common place of origin ,kinship, common beliefs and
sentiments Is rural .But a society based on profit making, commodity production, contractual
relation is urban .He is interested in the nature of social relation between urban and rural areas.
On the other hand ,Durkheim was in tested to see division of labor in society .According to him
there is a difference in the nature, complexity of the division of labor in rural an urban societies
.He proposed that in mechanical solidarity there is very little difference between the individuals
.What we have is a diffused relationship .People hold common belief and have collective
conscience . In organic solidarity the density of interaction is increased because people involved
are increasing ,the division of labor is specialized ,integrative force is division of labor instead of
belief system and values which are declining .Organic solidarity is the characteristics of urban
.But mechanical solidarity is the characteristics of rural area.
Weber; Traditional vs Modern\Rational :Max Weber has a tendency towards the notion of
traditional and modern society .His main interest was to see authority on the above contexts i.e.

1
Gemeinschaft(community) w hich is maintai ned by traditional rules and a universal sense of solidarity and whi ch
fits the organic theory of soci al union on t he other hand, Gemeinschaft t ends t o change into (societ y), in w hi ch
rational self-int erest is the stronger element Gesellschaft(soci et y). Gesellschaft must be hel d toget her by deliberat ely
formulat ed prescri ptions and may be expl ained in terms of the social-contract / instrument al theory. In practice, all
societi es show elements of both kinds of will, because man’s conduct is neither w holl y instinctive nor wholly
reasoned.

14
traditional authority and rational authority .in between them there is charismatic authority .For
Weber, the traditional is pre -industrial, non-illiterate, small scale, technologically simple
society\ authority.
But the rational authority\ society is capitalist, bureaucratic, dominated by state control. In such
society human action is subject to calculation, measurement, and a system of control. But not all
urban societies exhibit all these characteristics.
Continuum: - Continuous stages from rural to urban.
-Rurality develops to urbanity
Dichotomy: - Clear distinction between the two
Even though there is no such thing as a completely traditional or completely modern society at
the present time, the difference between the two forms of organization has great significance for
everyone alive today.
Even the idea of separating society or daily life into ‘components’ (economy, religion, political
organization, social relations, etc.) does not make sense in the modern worldview, in which they
are all inter-penetrated or a Gestalt/organized whole that is percieved as more than the sum of its
parts.The domination of Western ways and thought of all others, by military and economic force,
may be a historical fact, but is not necessarily a permanent state of affairs.
Subsistence and economy
Traditional:
- Production for use or subsist ence.
- Simpl e division o f l abor (age, sex); cooperation.
- Units of production are family, cl an, village, age-set.
- Units of distri buti on and consumption soci ally-based (family, et c.).
- Consumption to satisfy basi c needs.
- Little trans formation of production (crafts, metall urgy, cooking…)
Modern:
- Production for profit/growth.
- Complex divisi on o f l abor (speci alization, di fferentiation)
- Units of distri buti on and production can be Indivi duals, mechani zed, commerci al, corporate.
- More competition and over consumerism.
- High degree of t ransport ation of commodities.
- Dependence on others’ skills, knowl edge/pro fession.
Material culture
Traditional:
- Accumulation for redistribution/exchange for prestige in social ends.
- Collective ownership .
- No distinct economic sp here; inter-p enetrated with kinship, age, ritual.
- No work for p ay ; no formal contract; no “labor” or “shadow”.
- Few p ossessions; similar standard of living.
Modern:
- Resources not alway s used for social ends. Cult of wealth for self.
- Private ownership .
- Distinct economic sp here, with distinct domains.
- Pay for goods and services; contract-based; shadow work.

15
 - M any p ossessions; inequitable distribution of resources and wealth.
Cultural ecology.
Traditional:
- Subsistence strategy related to ecology , population size and structure, settlement pattern
- Sacred land and commons
- Use value of environment.Transp ort by human or animal energy
- Individuals have variety of skills; make tools and control them
- Human, p lant, animal and solar energy
- Migration and diverse settlement
- Limited diet
Modern:
- Techno-economic system unrelated to environmental, social and cultural factors
- Few sacred p laces or commons
- Resource exp loitation, domination of nature
- M achine transp ortation, chemical energy , Expertise replaces general knowledge
- Varied but questionable diet (commercialized)
Political and social features
Traditional:
- Public goals (for the good of group over individual)
- No bureaucracy
- Kin and gender dominance
- Face-to-face relations, every thing negotiable; consensus important
- Family imp ortant.
Modern:
- Some p ublic and p ersonal goals
- Bureaucratic
- Conquest, commerce, assimilation, colonialism
- stratified hierarchy of elites and Social sep aration
- Little sense of community /imp ersonal, distance communication/
- everything pre-defined
Lifestyle
Traditional:
- More leisure, more time; time means lived life
- Spiritual focus
- Mythological (OLD belief)basis for taboos and rules. Informal social control
- People entertain themselves. Conversation is an art
Modern:
- Less leisure, no time; time is independent of life; time is money
- Secular or religious
- Legalistic or doctrinal. Formal social control
- People are entertained by specialists
- Consumption replaces conversation

16
 2.2 Rural - Urban continuum
Some sociologists have used the concept of rural-urban continuum to stress the idea that there
are no sharp breakingpoints to be found in the degree or quantity of rural-urban differences.
Maclver remarks that though the communities are normally divided into rural and urban, the line
of demarcation is not always clear between these two types of communities. There is no sharp
demarcation to tell where the city ends and country begins. Every village possesses some
elements of the city and every city carries some features of the village. Rural-urban continuum
refers to the concept that communities cannot be put into two types of categories but should be
seen to represent various modernization stages on a linear scale.

I. Robert Redfield
He has given the concept of rural -urban continuum on the basis of his study of Mexican
peasants of Tepoztlain.The rapid process of urbanization through the establishment of industries,
urban traits and facilities have decreased the differences between villages and cities. He
conducted a serious of empirical studies and developed what he calls folk-urbanorientation. The
folk being traditional, homogenous village community while the urban being modern city.
Although he introduced the two, his interest was on identifying basic characteristics of folk \rural
society.
His model is used to see and explain the transformation from folk to urban. Some characteristics
of the transformation are loss of isolation and loss of homogeneity which finally results in
cultural disorganization \disorientation and heterogeneity. The first two are independent factors
which make folk society to transform to urban life. Notably, the consequences of transformation
are accompanied by secularization (clear cut division between the state and religion) and
individualism.
Folk /rural society Urban society
Small size of p op ulation Large population
Isolated, non-literate, homogenous Literate and heterogeneous
Strong sense of group solidarity More individualistic, Social disorganization
Traditional/sp ontaneous nature of behavior Greater division of labor
Prevalence of kinship Less group solidarity
Dominance of sacred Prevalence of secular

In general, R-U continuum consists of a series of gradations from supposedly:

o Semi-rural to
o Rural through
o Semi-urban to
o Urban and
o Hyper urban

17
 II. Sorokin and Zimmerman
They were rural sociologists interested in the role of occupational difference on distinguishing
rural from urban. They identified eight features that distinguish urban from rural.
 Occupational Difference; Agriculture is a predominant occupation in rural area and non-
farm activities are limited; work is performed in an open field and near to residence. Most
of the training about farming also occurs at home.
 Environmental differences: in rural area nature predominates over the social and the
anthropological environment i.e. People are closely related to the physical
environment\nature. the rural area is characterized by lack of infrastructure
 Difference in the size of the community and the pattern of settlement; in rural area
communities are small in size and are scattered
 Population density: rural areas are less dense than urban ones.
 Homogeneity of the population: people in rural areas are homogenous in terms of
behavior, culture, belief and language.
 Social differentiation; in rural areas there is less differentiation of people in relation to
occupation ,education ,wealth
 Spatial and social mobility: rural people are characterized by less mobility
,physically\spatially ,occupationally ,less mobile in terms of social stratification .Their
class position seems to be permanent because most of them belong to the class which is
peasantry.
 System of interaction: in rural area we have contacts per person, narrow area of
interaction, primary personal contacts predominate over secondary impersonal contact of
urban. Contacts in rural areas are durable emotion loaded, strong in quality but the
quantitative aspect of contact is limited.

III. Louis Wirthe: Ruralism and urbanism as ways of life : this theoretical
perspective was developed by Writhe who was interested in developing theory of
urbanism and ruralism as opposed to Redfield. He argued that “basic differences in
environment produce difference in way of life “.he believe that the two ways of life are
represent two different environments. For writhe, the city is distinguished from rural
community because of greater size and high degree of heterogeneity .These together
produce urbanism as a way of life or determines the degree of urbanism in a particular
society. Their development is accompanied by secularization and individualism,
breaking down of normative order and replacement by legal order.
He defined the city for sociological purpose as “a relatively large ,dense and permanent
settlement of heterogeneous individuals “.on the other hand rural is characterized by small
size ,low density of population ,homogeneity ,presence of primary \ affectual relationship as
opposed to instrumental relation ,high social control.

18
 To sum up;

Ruralism as a way of life Urbanism as a way of life

 Small size, low density homogeneity  Large size, high density, heterogeneity
 Strong social control  Weak social control
 Low division of labor  Greater division of labor
 Affective interpers onal relations  Instrumental interpersonal
 Primary relations  Secondary relations
Criticisms of rural-urban conceptual theories
Redfield’s theory:
– Glosses over apparent heterogeneity in rural areas
– Assumes rigid distinction between rural and urban
– Underestimates existence of great deal of mixture
Wirth’s theory:
– Ignores existence of many and different forms of rural and urban life,
varying from culture to culture
– Difficult to derive all aspects of rural & urban ways of life fro m only
demographic and social composition
Overall, there is an element of idealization & glorification of rural life as peaceful & egalitarian.

2.3 Political economy of rural people

Governments in most developing countries have adopted policies that discriminate against
agriculture. Interventions take a variety of forms, including the pricing and distribution of
agricultural commodities making agricultural price low to support industries and inputs, and
fiscal and credit policies that favor the industrial sector.
Governments also use indirect instruments, such as trade regimes and exchange rate policies;
when exchange rate is low export cost is low which often amplify the discriminatory impacts
against the countryside. The results of a large body of research indicate that these interventions
introduce distortions in the economic systems, because large income transfers away from the
rural sector, and, ultimately, lead to slower agricultural and overall economic growth.

While urban bias is virtually universal in the process of economic development, there are
primarily two competing analytical paradigms for explaining policy formations. One theory,
associated primarily with the work of Michael Lipton (1977) and Robert Bates (1981), finds
answers in the political structure of those countries, arguing that agriculture is disfavored in
development because urban groups are politically powerful. The second theory emphasizes the
development strategy of the modernizing elites who, as evidence shows, believe that industry
rather than agriculture is the catalyst sector for rapid growth and that taxing agriculture
provides the much needed financial support for industrialization. Despite the clarity of views at

19
the conceptual level, empirical assessments of these two hypotheses is difficult because of an
identification problem.
The coexistence of political activities of urban groups and the belief of the modernizing elites in
industrialization complicates the measurement of the two causes, making it hard to separate the
individual effects of the causes on policy formation. As a consequence, the explanatory power of
the two hypotheses remains largely untested.

A. The Urban Bias Thesis: Michael Lipton

Most of the theories listed above focus on socio-cultural features to explain rural and urban
differences .But this theory focuses on political economy .This one was very controversial and
influential during the 1970’s.His main work was “why poor people stay poor”. He explained the
difference in terms of power, exploitation, and domination of urban people over the rural (urban
bias). Urban bias argument is related specially with the third world in terms of resource
physically, financially ,human labor are systematically and deliberately allocated .Urban are
getting much resource than rural as a result there is a conflict b\n the two. Lipton said “the most
important class conflict in poor countries of the world today is not b\n labor and capital .Nor is it
b\n foreign and national interests .It is b\n the rural and the urban classes. There are two ways in
which urban bias is manifested;
a. Surplus extraction; this also has two way in which the urban extract surplus from rural.
These are;
(1)Heavy direct taxation, the rural are heavily taxed than the urban on per capital base which
intended to transfer surplus from rural to urban.
(2)Through unequal exchange of goods and services; He believed there is a distorted inter-
sectoral terms of trade. The term of trade involve farm produce versus industrial product through
what is called price twists, products of rural people are underpriced over the reverse. The
consequence of this trade relation is cheap food policy. Then the urban will be satisfied so that it
will not revolt against the government .Thus the issue is political in nature.
b. Neglect and biased allocation of resources; has two ways
(1) Biased productive investment. In most third world countries resource allocated to rural
people and agricultural sector is insignificant compared to the urban or industrialized sector
.Because, in those days there was a belief that a rural household is insignificant in the process
of development .But, latter it was realized that it is better than large industries in the efficient
use of resources.
(2) biased infrastructure facility ;the urban get better infrastructure both qualitatively and
quantitatively than the rural areas though the rural cover 80% of the population 60% of GDP
and 80% of employment opportunities. The root of bias can be traced to politically and
ideologically charged idea of industrialization by squeezing agriculture in 1960’s and
1970’s.But it was found to be negative development or counterproductive grounds of equity
and efficiency.

20
Regarding equity, Lipton, though don’t oppose industrialization said so far as the goal of
development is to eradicate poverty. It is logical to give priority to the sector where the rural
poor engaged (agriculture).Regarding efficiency he said capital investment on agriculture gives
higher returns in terms of employment, more goods per unit of land etc. But industry is capital
intensive so that no employment opportunity and importing it has danger on foreign currency .In
addition the poor countries are not competitive in the industry market. The consequence of urban
bias was mostly increase in poverty, inequality, wide gap b\n rural and urban areas. In general,
• Power & exploitation at the root of urban bias
• Resources are deliberately allocated to urban areas
• Rural areas receive less and less of resources
• Give rise to conflict between rural & urban areas
• Exploitation of rural by urban
• Industrialization by squeezing agriculture is at the root of urban bias – counterproductive
strategy
2.4 Diffusion of Innovation Theory
Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) Theory, developed by E.M. Rogers in 1962, is one of the oldest
social science theories. It originated in communication to explain how, over time, an idea or
product gains momentum and diffuses (or spreads) through a specific population or social
system. The end result of this diffusion is that people, as part of a social system, adopt a new
idea, behavior, or product. Adoption means that a person does something differently than what
they had previously (i.e., purchase or use a new product, acquire and perform a new behavior,
etc.). The key to adoption is that the person must perceive the idea, behavior, or product as new
or innovative. It is through this that diffusion is possible. Diffusion scholars (e.g. Rogers,
1995) have identified main elements in the diffusion of innovation:

 An innovation: Innovation refers to: Idea, Practice, or Object, that is perceived as new
by an individual.
 Communication channel: Communication is the process by which participants create
and, share information to reach mutual understanding which can be communicated
through mass media but more effective in creating awareness is interpersonal
communoctaion in forming and changing attitudes towards a new idea.
 Time: The time dimension is involved in different ways: first, in the innovation diffusion
process, mental process passing that is first knowledge of an innovation, to forming a
attitude toward the innovation, to to decision to adopt, to implementation of new idea, to
to confirmation of this decision. Second, Time is also involved in the innovativeness of
an individual (degree to which an individual is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas.)
 Social System: Rate of diffusion of innovation is affected by social structure
(conservative/broad-minded society), social norms (e.g. group norms), opinion leadership
(degree to which an individual is able to influence informally other individuals’ attitude,

21
 types of innovation-decisions (whether individual adoption decisions or organization
decisions) and consequences of innovation.

Adoption of a new idea, behavior, or product (i.e., "innovation") does not happen simultaneously
in a social system; rather it is a process whereby some people are more apt to adopt the
innovation than others. Researchers have found that people who adopt an innovation early have
different characteristics than people who adopt an innovation later. When promoting an
innovation to a target population, it is important to understand the characteristics of the target
population that will help or hinder adoption of the innovation. There are five established
adopter categories, and while the majority of the general population tends to fall in the middle
categories, it is still necessary to understand the characteristics of the target population. When
promoting an innovation, there are different strategies used to appeal to the different adopter
categories.

1. Innovators - These are people who want to be the first to try the innovation. They are
venturesome and interested in new ideas. These people are very willing to take risks, and
are often the first to develop new ideas. Very little, if anything, needs to be done to
appeal to this population.
2. Early Adopters - These are people who represent opinion leaders. They enjoy leadership
roles, and embrace change opportunities. They are already aware of the need to change
and so are very comfortable adopting new ideas. Strategies to appeal to this population
include how-to manuals and information sheets on implementation. They do not need
information to convince them to change.
3. Early Majority - These people are rarely leaders, but they do adopt new ideas before the
average person. That said, they typically need to see evidence that the innovation works
before they are willing to adopt it. Strategies to appeal to this population include success
stories and evidence of the innovation's effectiveness.
4. Late Majority - These people are skeptical of change, and will only adopt an innovation
after it has been tried by the majority. Strategies to appeal to this population include
information on how many other people have tried the innovation and have adopted it
successfully.
5. Laggards - These people are bound by tradition and very conservative. They are very
skeptical of change and are the hardest group to bring on board. Strategies to appeal to
this population include statistics, fear appeals, and pressure from people in the other
adopter groups.

22
The stages by which a person adopts an innovation, and whereby diffusion is accomplished,
include awareness of the need for an innovation, decision to adopt (or reject) the innovation,
initial use of the innovation to test it, and continued use of the innovation. There are five main
factors that influence adoption of an innovation, and each of these factors is at play to a
different extent in the five adopter categories.

1. Relative Advantage - The degree to which an innovation is seen as better than the idea,
program, or product it replaces.
2. Compatibility - How consistent the innovation is with the values, experiences, and needs
of the potential adopters.
3. Complexity - How difficult the innovation is to understand and/or use.
4. Triability - The extent to which the innovation can be tested or experimented with before
a commitment to adopt is made.
5. Observability - The extent to which the innovation provides tangible results.

This theory has been used successfully in many fields including communication, agriculture,
public health, criminal justice, social work, and marketing. In public health, Diffusion of
Innovation Theory is used to accelerate the adoption of important public health programs that
typically aim to change the behavior of a social system. For example, an intervention to address a
public health problem is developed, and the intervention is promoted to people in a social system
with the goal of adoption (based on Diffusion of Innovation Theory). The most successful
adoption of a public health program results from understanding the target population and the
factors influencing their rate of adoption.
Rural-Urban Differences: Closing the gap
The rural –urban difference is declining and is believed to continue declining due to
 Rapid increase in communication :there is growing contacts physically , in values, norms
and institutions of rural and urban people through print media ,electronic media
transportation etc
 Progressive breaking down of the isolation of rural areas and consequent borrowing and
diffusion of ideas and information.
 The narrowing of rural-urban differences especially in developed countries is
accompanied by decline in rural population arising from increased farm productivity and

23
 subsequent migration of farmers in to the nearby urban centers. There is also a close link
b\n farm and non-farm sector especially agro-industry and food processing in the USA
which make farmers closely linked to the urban through market system.
 The farmer is highly specialized in production so that he adopted an urban agricultural
type\mode
 Rapid change in the social organization of people

chapter Three

RURAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS

The modern civilized society is characterized by a number of organizations. Our society in any
ways is organizational society. We not only live in, belong to or work through organizations but
satisfy most of our desires and fulfill our aspirations through organizations.
The term “organization” is used in different ways to mean different things. The term is generally
used to mean an “association” or an “associational group”. In a restricted sense, it refers to one
of the attributes of an association (to mean an arrangement of statuses and roles).

The term is used in sociological studies and researches today to stress the importance of
arrangement of parts and their interdependence in groups and in societies. The concept is of help
in understanding the way in which the parts of society are related to each other and how each is
related to the whole society. It is now widely recognized that social organization is required for
the survival and the effective function of groups and societies. The term organization is in
sociology sometimes used interchangeably with the term institution, as when referring to a
formal organization like a hospital or a prison. In other parts of sociology, such as the sociology
of organizations, 'organization' and 'institution' refer to two different phenomena. Organizations
are a group of individuals pursuing a set of collective goals with established roles, methods of
coordination, procedures, culture and space.

Organizations can include:

24
 1. Political Bodies (Political Parties, Congress, Department of Corrections),
2. Social Groups (Churches, Clubs, Athletic Associations, Households, Communities),
3. Economic Bodies (Unions, Cooperatives, Corporations), And
4. Educational Bodies (Schools, Training Centers, Colleges).

Institutions are ideas about how something should be done, look or be constituted in order to be
viewed as legitimate. Institutions are also “stable collection of social practices consisting of
easily recognized roles coupled with underlying norms and a set of rules or conventions defining
appropriate behavior for, and governing relations among, occupants of these roles” (Horton and
Hunt, 2004).

Organizations are different in different societies. The fundamental organizations in the

foraging(hunting) and gathering type of society are based on family, marriage, kinship and
gender. The organizations in this type of societies are simple and more or less personal,
whereas in the tribal society organizations are more complex. The tribal societies produce
most of their subsistence foods through small-scale cultivation and the domestication of
animals. The evolution of food producing subsistence corresponds to the development of new
forms of social organizations. When it comes to the agrarian societies that are similar to
Ethiopian case, they are with more complex social organizations. Because Agricultural states
were more co mplex and highly organized than pre-state societies, they could not rely solely
in kinship for recruitment to different status position.

In highly centralized agricultural societies the state itself replaces kin groups as a major
integrating principle in society. The agrarian structure mode of production is different from
the previous type of societies. They are diverse and advanced. New and diverse forms of
social organizations have enabled rural societies to adjust to the new economic conditions.
Rural societies have had to develop social relations that are more fixed and permanent.

In general, social organization in rural areas of a group includes how people interact, the
kinship systems they use, marriage residency patterns, how they divide up the various tasks
that need to be completed, which has access to specific goods and knowledge, what ranking
strategy is being used.

25
In Ethiopia rural social organizations can be categorized into two. The fundamental or
primary one is kinship/locality- based organizations whereas the secondary are function-
based organizations. The former is to refer the Rural Household and Rural Co mmunities and
the latter is to mean voluntary and other local organizations that are established intentionally
or unintentionally for some purpose.

3.1 Rural Households

At the most basic local level, rural societies are organized on the basis of a network of
households and communities. Rural households and communities are the building blocks of
sociological analysis of rural society. The rural household is usually characterized as the basic
economic and social cell of rural communities. The concept of household is preferable to the
concept of family. Family implies marriage, kinship and/or blood relationships, but household
does not necessarily imply blood relationship. In rural areas, the so-called household is a basic
unit of production and consumption; and it is not only a biological, social or kinship doing.
Generally, a household refers to people who share certain important characteristics: shared
residence, shared consumption, and common economic & social activity. The most important
characteristic of the rural household is the fact that it is both a unit of production and
consumption. This is the most general characteristics of the household that directly or indirectly
affects other features of the household. This distinguishes the rural household from the urban
household. The rural household is engaged in pooling and sharing of resources such as labor,
land, livestock, etc… to undertake production, distribution and exchange. For example, in
peasant farming households, labor is provided by household members and production is mainly
distributed towards household consumption. This fact indicates that the household and its farms
are virtually inseparable from each other.

3.1.1 The Social Organization of the Rural Household

The social organization of the rural household can be explained in two ways: the institution of
the patriarchy and age and gender division of labor.

26
Institution of the Patriarchy: patriarchy as institution is an old concept that has got two
meaning. First, it describes the domination of men over women in general. Second, it is used to
describe the type of household organization in which an elder man (patriarchy) dominates the
household organization including his possession of resources. In most peasant agrarian societies,
the authority of the patriarchy is based on and reinforced by two foundations: control over
economic resources and socio-cultural (social, religious and ideological) values.
Age and Gender Division of Labor: the internal principle of the rural household is that there Comment [H1]: test

should be division of labor based on sex and age. In sub-Saharan Africa, some scholars say that,
a major change in the nature of the rural household and division of labor has occurred due to two
changes: -
1. The introduction of cash crop production that brought about an important change in the
gender division of labor mainly in agricultural production. In many regions of sub-Saharan
region, cash-crop production became a men domain whereas food crop production became
the women’s domain. The distinctive feature of cash crop production is that it provided direct
access to cash income which is controlled and disposed by men. It became a prestigious
activity supplying cash income while controlling the decision-making process within the
household. As a result of men’s control over cash crop, women became the main producers
of food crop.
2. Migrant wage labor: the introduction of wage labor brought about even more complicated
change in rural areas. In the absence of men, women were obliged to shoulder all the
household responsibilities. That is in the fact terms they became the household heads.

Size of the rural households

It is fact that the rural household is both production and consumption unit. It is also fact that the
rural household’s activity is based on gender and age division of labor. These facts drive for
everyone to perceive that a complete household is essential for its proper function. A completed
house hold includes married couples and children to bring about gender and age division of
labor. The production and reproduction logic of the house hold has been argued to push the
house hold a self towards a larger house hold size as ideal desirable situation. Therefore, the
tendency towards higher fertility and larger house hold size is usually explained in terms of the
rules, the patterns or the logic of production of the house hold. This logic usually revolves

27
around the question of children as assets. There are two general arguments for viewing children
as assets.
a. The labor power logic: children play a vital role in the production and reproduction
activities of the house hold. They provide the needed labor for domestic as well as outdoor
activities from an early age and once they start contributing house hold labor, children
become assets rather than burdens on the house hold.
b. Security and welfare: here there are two arguments. Comment [H2]: test

 High infant and child mortality in many rural areas means fertility should also be
high so that out of many children some will survive.
 In the absence of formal insurance and welfare security, kinship networks are the
only means of support for the elderly, the sick, and the disabled in rural areas in
developing countries.

It is very true that children in rural areas are assets, but we should be careful in our analysis of
this issue because parents in rural areas do not merely give children to full fill their economic
interest as deliberate and calculated rational strategy. The correct argument is that the socio-
economic rules as surrounded by religious and social norms in terms of which biological
reproduction is justified. That why many rural development projects such as family planning or
formal schooling in rural areas face much more obstacles, for example, competition for labor
because of household activity.

3.2 Rural Communities Comment [H3]: test

The social life people lead is affected by the kind of community in which they live. The
community is as old as humanity-or even older, for our subhuman ancestors probably shared a
community life. A co mmunity can be defined either as a human group (town, city, and village)
or as a body of sentiment (sense of commitment, loyalty), but there is no uniformity in the use
of the term. One widely quoted definition reads: “a community is a local grouping within which
people carry out a full round of life activities.”(Horton and Hunt, 2004). When this definition is
seen in a greater detail a community includes (1) a grouping of people, (2) within a
geographical area, (3) with a division of labor into specialized and interdependent functions, (4
with a common culture and a social system which organizes their activities, (5) whose members

28
are conscious of their unity and belongingness to the community, and (6) whose members are
act collectively as an organized manner. For it qualify as a true community, its members would
need to experience all or nearly all of the culture within the communities boundaries. In
addition to this, the word community can be seen in a way that a group of people with common
concerns and interests. There are four conceptions for the term community.
 Community as a geographical expression refers to a collection of people in a bounded
physical location;

 Community as a self-sufficient and self-contained entity;

 Community as a special kind of human association having common spirit; and

 Community as a social system is viewed as a local social system and primary arena in
which social and economic activities take place. This is somewhat similar to the above
mentioned about community

It has been traditional to classify communities as rural or urban, depending upon whether their
populations were small and agricultural, or larger and industrial or commercial. The
classification was never entirely satisfactory, for it made no provision for the fishing village,
the mining camp, the trading post, or many other special types of communities. Modern
transportation has so eroded the boundaries between city and country that we actually have a
shading of one community in the other and not two distinct communities.
3.3 Traditional Characteristics of Rural Life
Rural Communities are not all alike. Yet certain characteristics are common to nearly all kinds
of rural communities.
1. Isolation: Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of rural life (particularly in the past) is its
isolation. Throughout much of the world, rural people are clustered into small villages,
within walking distance of the surrounding farmland. Not only has been the local group
isolated from other groups, but each family was isolated from other families. With a thinly
scattered population, personal contacts have been few. Each contact involved the perception
of an individual as a complete person not simply as a functionary. Impersonal contacts are
few in rural societies. The rural communities said as self-contained. They are thought as they
are complete for themselves. Every type of social relations and interactions can do within

29
 themselves. That could be another reason that makes them isolated.
2. Homogeneity: The rural communities are thought as homogeneous within the given locality.
Rural co mmunities are homogeneous with regard to different aspects such as in economic,
occupation, religion and son. This homogeneity, together with the comparative isolation of
settlements from one another, helped to encourage the conservatism, traditionalism, and
ethnocentrism of rural communities.
3. Farming: Nearly all are farmers and hired hands, while even the health worker, priest, teacher,
storekeep er, the agricultural extension worker and blacksmith have been deeply involved in
agricultural way of life. All have faced common problems, performed common tasks, and shared
common help lessness before the awesome natural forces which lie beyond the human control.
4. Subsistence Economy: The traditional rural homestead has tried to produce nearly
everything it consumed. The bulging smoke-house and the shelves sagging with home
prepared goods have been sources of pride to the farm family. In a rapidly expanding
economy with shortage of money and credit, a subsistence and barter economy is a socially
useful adaptation. Thrift is an honored value; conspicuous consumption has been seen as an
urban vice. A farm couple’s status was measured by their land, herds, barns, crops and the
inheritance they could pass on to their children.

These above characteristics are not something that has to be seen strictly. In some communities
they can be observable and also followed whereas in some other communities many of them
are eroded due to different reasons. In practice, it’s true that Communities share agro-
ecological communalities like residence, water supply, kinship, and religious affiliation. In
most cases it is implied that members of a community act jointly in respect of these
communalities. In reality communities are not homogenous in composition or in concerns as
well as not completely isolated. But it is usual to see a community being treated
administratively as a homogenous unit.

Rural communities differ greatly with respect to a range of factors including: Ethnicity
(affiliations to a given ethnic group), affiliation to political party, Agro ecological conditions,
Socio-economic status, Network, Wealth, Dependence on common pool resources, Degree of
reliance on farming for livelihood (off farm + remittance), Degree of integration into the

30
market economy and proximity to urban centers, Degree of dependence on self-production
versus processed food and exposure to ideas from others – in the market driven world. In rural
sociology, the idea of a rural community has been considered as an important intermediate
social organization mainly linking the rural household with the larger society. However the
nature of the rural community and its relations with the larger society has not been always
clear. Generally, there are two contrasting model of the rural community: - closed rural
communities versus open rural community.

Closed communities have the following features: homogeneity in composition, clear boundary
between local community and the external world, collective responsibility among members
with restrictions of land ownership by outsider because of the tendency of ownership &
management of land and other resources by the community (i.e. communal land tenure),strong
control and regulation of the behavior of members.

On the contrary, open rural communities are heterogeneous, with individual and household
responsibility; there is the tendency towards individualization of land tenure and private
ownership of land (private proprietorship of land), weak control and regulation of the behavior
of members.

The Rural Community: Myth and Reality

The idea of rural community is very misleading because there are value judgments included.
For example, it is assumed that the rural community is homogenous and egalitarian, stable and
harmonious, self-sufficient and self-contained entity. Today, it is argued that the
characterization of the rural community in terms of these features is based on a romantic view
of the rural as an embodiment of the “good life”. The origin of this problem is that in order to
highlight the artificial, impersonal, individualistic and disorganized nature of urban industrial
society, sociologists developed and exaggerated, one-sided and idealized view of the rural
community.

The elaborate this point we take the generalization that the rural community is homogenous and
egalitarian. This generalization involves two aspects. First, socioeconomic differences between
households are small and that people are uniformly poor. Second, there are local customers and

31
traditions, which generate and maintain a homogenous and egalitarian population in rural
community. To what extent are rural communities homogeneous and egalitarian? Poly Hill
argues that socio-economic inequality and differentiation is innate/ inherent in almost all- rural
community in developing countries. This feature is not something that is accidental or imposed.

One of the few important socio-economic generalizations, which may safely be made about
rural community, is that a significant degree of socio-economic inequality exists within any
rural community in which cash circulates. Poly Hill explores two factors why socio-economic
inequality is inherent in rural area.
1. Commutative advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, for reasons of chances alone, not
all households may be affected equality rather some households are more vulnerable to
shocks and misfortunes. This has the implication that even if all households have equal
resources some household is found to perform better than others.
2. Commutative advantages and disadvantages- here she argues that rural household and
community are part of a broader socio-economic system and they are not isolated. For
example, they participate in cash based market economy. This has an important implication
for socio-economic differentiation working through cumulative advantages and
disadvantages. In this case, better off household tend to have the ability to store grain for a
seasonal price rise. In contract, poor household are more likely to sell their grain
immediately after harvest when prices are low. Additionally, better off household are in a
better position to raise resources for a more efficient and market oriented productions,.
They also engage in profitable off-farm income generating activities (trade, transportation).
Here basic point is that the ideas of homogeneity and equality of rural community obscures
conditions, which is important to the rural people. However, this does not mean that there is
no egalitarian philosophy in rural community.

The Changing Rural Community

As mentioned above traditionally rural communities may be characterized by isolation,
subsistence, farming and soon. However, today’s rural communities have not practicing their
life in a similar way to communities 50 years ago. The changes are happening due to different
reasons:

32
 Reduced Is olation: Two generations ago the isolation of rural life could be measured by the
contrast between the styles. Today the styles are similar. The automobile and good roads have
brought a transformation of rural and village life which is difficult for the present generations
of students to appreciate. Thousands of small villages are no longer self-contained
communities, as good roads have carried their trade, their store-keepers, their professionals, and
their recreation to a nearby city. Transportation plus the press, radio, and television have now
ending the social isolation of rural areas.
Commercialization and Rationalization of Agriculture: Without a revolution in agricultural
productivity, there could have been little urban growth. Farming used to be a way of life which
called for no special knowledge beyond that which farm youth absorbed unavoidable as they
grew up. Today farming is a highly complex operation demanding substantial capital and
specialized knowledge. The most successful farmers today not only use the latest farm
technology but also study market trends and trade in commodities future actively.
Urbanization of Rural life: Although there are still some differences between the modal
personalities, life-styles, and value systems of rural and urban dwellers, all the historic rural-
urban differences are shrinking. Every rural activity from agriculture to mate selection has been
urbanized in that the values and norms governing the activity do not differ significantly
between rural and urban people. This process is wide spread but uneven. Rural areas closer to
large cities, and those where agriculture is mostly rationalized and commercialized show the
highest degree of urbanization: more isolated areas and areas where farm practices are more
traditional show fewer urban influences.

3.4 Rural Local Organi zations

Organizations are group or association, formal or informal, in which there are defined and
accepted roles, positions and responsibilities structured in some relationship to each other in
order to achieve specific objectives. Local organizations are different from other organizations in
type, in function as well as in purpose. Local organizations sometimes are called bona fide or
genuine organizations. A “local organization” can be defined as any autonomous body of persons
established or purposes directed wholly or mainly for the benefit of the district in which it is set
up. Rural people often form groups to achieve individual interests. These collective activities are
carried out through formal and informal organizations and groups. Some organizations carry out

33
purely economic activities while others carry out non-economic activities. Some organizations
have flexible membership. Other groups may have limited or even exclusive membership.
There are many types of organizations existing in the rural communities/villages. The local
organizations can be grouped into two: local organizations which are established and authorized
by the government or some outside agents for their own purpose, and the others are formed
voluntarily by the community/villagers themselves. There are many variations between these
categories in structure, rules, purpose, and membership.

Local organizations which are authorized and supported government are more or less formal and
legally recognized organizations. These are organization with missions given from the regional
or central governments. These are Peasant Associations (PA), Credit Institutions, farmers groups,
youth societies and some political groups. The PAs are responsible to the communities
administration, Tax collection, Conflict resolution and soon. PAs are officially established
administrative unit in the rural community which is run by the villagers. The PAs are also a
representation of the central as well as the regional governments. They are government
functionaries. The Finance and Credit institutions are also in the rural areas to support financially
the farming community’s activity. More importantly is the cooperative societies. A cooperative
is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic,
social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled
enterprise. Cooperatives are people-centre business enterprises which operate in all areas of
economic activity and in almost all countries of the world. Cooperatives can be large enterprises
with millions of members or small community enterprises. However, common to all are the
cooperative values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.
Cooperatives also believe in social responsibility and include as one of their principles the
concern for the community in which they operate.

The other types of local organizations are that are initiated and set up by local people themselves
out of emerging social and economic problems or needs. Or sometimes they are called informal
voluntary organizations. These institutions are of different kinds with distinct purposes,
functions, membership structures and management. Some are: religious, economic, political and
labor associations.

34
Religious associations: Mahber and Senbete are religious associations founded by a group of
people who belong to the same church. Mahber is associated with the names of particular saints.
The saint's day is celebrated every month with a feast. Each member is responsible for the feast
in his or her turn. Guests who are not members are invited from the neighborhood. People from
neighbouring PAs (Peasant association) can belong to the Mahber. The other type is known as
Senbete and is prepared by each member in turn in the compound of the church. There are no
religious associations among Muslims similar to the Christian Mahber.

Idir is a sort of religious burial association which is established in order to share the burdens of
individual households when close relatives die. Members contribute regularly in order to cover
the expenses of funeral ceremonies, and the food and drinks needed. Idir are also used to collect
money for members during mo ments of heavy loss, like the death of cattle or the loss of a house
due to fire. Idir (for both Christians and Muslims) is a prominent association in Northern
Ethiopia, as is the case in most parts of Ethiopia. Usually each parish has one Idir. Sometimes
Idirs may involve followers of both Christian and Muslim religions. In addition to contribution
of money monthly, members also contribute labor and food at the time of the death of a member
or a close relative of a member. In case of failure to fulfill one's obligations there is a fine.
People who are not members of Idir also help each other in times of crisis. Actually Idirs are
more co mmon in the urban areas because other social ties are very weak in the urban areas. In
the rural people, Idir is there but it is not as strong as the urban areas. It’s usually supported by
some other social ties.
Economic Associations: Equb is a major economic institution that primarily serves to save cash.
It is a formalized association with a secretary and a judge and usually a board of three persons.
Each member has to find a guarantor of the equb member to ensure that the member does not fail
in his duties after he or she has received a lot. Sometimes people join equb to buy something that
they could not afford from their own pocket. These include clothing, food, household equipment,
livestock, to pay tax, etc. Today, this equb is being replaced by more formal one that is called
saving and credit cooperatives; this is strong and formal because it is supported by the
government sectors.
Political Associations: The Council of elders is an institution where people appeal when they
are involved in conflict with their neighbors. Certain individuals respected for their experience

35
and wisdom play a significant role in conflict resolution. The moral authority they assume helps
them solve a number of problems. In this respect a council of elders has much more acceptance
than a local justice department sponsored by the Peasant Association. The role of spirit
possession cults in conflict resolution is not something to be underestimated in this regard. Spirit
possession is closely intertwined with the elements of the wider cultural fabric of the study.
Labour agreements: No man works alone. All activities are done in Gisso (works the same way
as Debo). Gisso is one of the work arrangements temporarily arranged to share the agricultural
work in the field. The activities include ploughing, manure spreading, threshing. Members of the
Debo are required to work on the other members plot when requested. Food and drinks are
offered on the day of the Debo so that the participants could work the whole day. The most
important factor for the participation in Debo is neighborhood. Partnership is also based on
kinship relationships. Wonfel is anything from just lending a hand to a neighbor for a short time.
It does not involve food and drinks. Another type of labor organization is Wefri- which is
practiced mostly in the Tigrai region. This is also similar to others mentioned in the exchange of
labors. This happens in a way that when a farmer is in shortage of labor power, he invite
neighbors to work in his fields. In return, he also works some other day and spends equivalent
time in each of the people who engaged in his field.
Stages of rural household formation
In order to identify how they are related we can take a simplified assumption that the rural
household passes though four stages in its full life cycle and its economic reproduction.
Therefore, in some rural social analysis this relationship occupies a very important position. It is
central and controversial in the analysis of rural household economy and rural society.
1. Formation of the household- both the consumption needs as well as the resources of the
household are limited. The division of labor and decision making power is simplified.
2. The birth of children- it implies that the consumption needs of the family increases and the
household is under pressure to increase labor and its resources including the amount of land
cultivated. This is a somewhat unfavorable stage in terms of the labor, worker and consumer
ratio. There are more mouths than labor to produce.
3. Labor increase. Here following the growing up of children and making of labor
contribution to the various activities of the household, the labor constraints are significantly
reduced.

36
4. The maturity of children- the maturity and eventual marriage of children and partition of Comment [H4]: test

property (land) to the new household, leads to the dissolutions of the original parental
household and formations of new household.

3.5. Neighborhood

Neighborhood is a smaller unit than the community .a community often is composed of several
neighborhoods .Carl Taylor has described the community as “the first social group in
modern life that approaches self-sufficiency”.

An important distinction b\n it and neighborhood is that the latter is not self sufficient as the
former. Neighborhoods have been described as “limited geographic areas in which the
individuals and families are known to each other and carry on intimate associations
together.”

A neighborhood may hence be characterized by

a. A locality group of people

b. Limited geographical area
c. Frequent face-to –face contacts
d. Frequent participation in common activities
e. Presence of some service or supply agency, organization or institution.

Neighborhoods are hence more sociable entities based on personal relationships than are
communities which are based on social and economic requirements of residents and the
satisfaction of them. Neighborhoods usually have homogeneity. There exists a physical
closeness of dwelling places and greater inter-personal contacts among those living in the same
neighborhood. Thus, the neighborhood is important because of the effects of inter-personal
relationships and social interaction on decision making process both in families and the
community.

3.6. Land Tenure as a Social Institution

What is Land Tenure?

37
 Land tenure is the relationship, whether legally or customarily defined, among
people, as individuals or groups, with respect to land. (For convenience, “land” is used
here to include other natural resources such as water and trees.) Land tenure is an
institution,i.e., rules invented by societies to regulate behavior. Rules of tenure define
how property rights to land are to be allocated within societies. They define how
access is granted to rights to use, control, and transfer land, as well as associated
responsibilities and restraints. In simple terms, land tenure systems determine who can
use what resources for how long, and under what conditions.

Land tenure is an important part of social, political and economic structures. It is

multi-dimensional, bringing into play, social, technical, economic, institutional, legal
and political aspects that are often ignored but must be taken into account. Land
tenure relationships may be well-defined and enforceable in a formal court of law or
through customary structures in a community.
3.6.1. Types of land tenure
Land tenure is often categorized as:

 Private: the assignment of rights to a private party who may be an individual, a married
couple, a group of people, or a corporate body such as a commercial entity or non-profit
organization. For example, within a community, individual families may have exclusive
rights to residential parcels, agricultural parcels and certain trees. Other members of the
community can be excluded from using these resources without the consent of those who
hold the rights.
 Communal: a right of commons may exist within a community where each member has a
right to use independently the holdings of the community. For example, members of a
community may have the right to graze cattle on a common pasture.
 Open access: specific rights are not assigned to anyone and no-one can be excluded. This Comment [H5]: test

typically includes marine tenure where access to the high seas is generally open to anyone;
it may include rangelands, forests, etc, where there may be free access to the resources for
all. (An important difference between open access and communal systems is that, under a

38
 communal system, non-members of the community are excluded from using the
common areas.)
 State: property rights are assigned to some authority in the public sector. For example, in
some countries, forest lands may fall under the mandate of the state, whether at a central or
decentralized level of government.

In practice, most forms of holdings may be found within a given society, for example, common
grazing rights, private residential and agricultural holdings, and state ownership of forests.
Customary tenure typically includes communal rights to pastures and exclusive private rights to
agricultural and residential parcels. In some countries, formally recognized rights to such
customary lands are vested in the nation state or the President “in trust” for the citizens.

The right that a person has in an object such as land may be considered as property. The range of
property is extensive and includes, for example, intellectual property. In the case of land tenure,
it is sometimes described more precisely as property rights to land. A distinction is often made
between “real property” or “immovable property” on the one hand, and “personal property” or
“movable property” on the other hand. In the first case, property would include land and fixtures
(buildings, trees, etc) that would be regarded as immovable. In the second case, property would
include objects not considered fixed to the land, such as cattle, etc.

However, most discussions about land tenure systems are polarized into two, especially in
Ethiopia:
– Communal
– Private, but issues dealing with land tenure system are much more than that and
in a given society it is possible to find diversity

The FDRE constitution states that government has the duty to hold land and other natural
resources and to deploy for the common benefit of the Ethiopian people. The rationale for public
ownership of land are:
– Population pressure
– Need to protect small peasant family farm
– Need to prevent conflict among different group Comment [H6]: test

39
In practice, multiple rights can be held by several different persons or groups. This has given rise
to the concept of “a bundle of rights”. Different rights to the same parcel of land, such as the
right to sell the land, the right to use the land through a lease, or the right to travel across the
land, may be pictured as “sticks in the bundle”. Each right may be held by a different party. The
bundle of rights, for example, may be shared between the owner and a tenant to create a leasing
or sharecropping arrangement allowing the tenant or share cropper the right to use the land on
specified terms and conditions. Tenancies may range from formal leaseholds of 999 years to
informal seasonal agreements. If the farm is mortgaged, the creditor may hold a right from the
“bundle” to recover the unpaid loan through a sale of the mortgaged property in the case of
default. A neighboring farmer may have the right from the “bundle” to drive cattle across the
land to obtain water at the river.

At times it may be useful to simplify the representation of property rights by identifying:

 Use rights: rights to use the land for grazing, growing subsistence crops, gathering minor
forestry products, etc.
 Control rights: rights to make decisions how the land should be used including deciding
what crops should be planted, and to benefit financially from the sale of crops, etc.
 Transfer rights: right to sell or mortgagethe land, to convey the land to others through
intra-community reallocations, to transmit the land to heirs through inheritance, and to
reallocate use and control rights.

Very often, the poor in a community have only use rights. A woman, for example, may have the
right to use some land to grow crops to feed the family, while her husband may collect the profits
from selling any crops at the market. While such simplifications can be useful, it should be noted
that the exact manner in which rights to land are actually distributed and enjoyed can be very
complex.

In broad terms, land tenure rights are often classified according to whether they are “formal” or
“informal”. There can be perceptual problems with this approach because, for example, some so-
called informal rights may, in practice, be quite formal and secure in their own context. Despite
these perceptual problems, the classification of formal and informal tenure can sometimes

40
provide the basis for useful analysis. Formal property rights may be regarded as those that are
explicitly acknowledged by the state and which may be protected using legal means.

Informal property rights are those that lack official recognition and protection. In some cases,
informal property rights are illegal, i.e., held in direct violation of the law. An extreme case is
when squatters occupy a site in contravention of an eviction notice. In many countries, illegal
property holdings arise because of inappropriate laws. For example, the minimum size of a farm
may be defined by law whereas in practice farms may be much smaller as a result of informal
subdivisions amongheirs. Property rights may also be illegal because of their use, e.g., the illegal
conversion of agricultural land for urban purposes.

3.6.2. Access to Land

Access to land for the rural poor is often based on custom. Customary rights to land
in indigenous societies, for example, are usually created following their traditions and
through the ways in which community leaders assign land use rights to the community
members. These rights of access may have their origin in the use of the land over a
long period. They are often rights developed by ancestral occupation and by the use of
land by ancestral societies. In such cases, it is through the act of original clearance of
the land and settlement by ancestors that rights are claimed. People also use a wide
range of strategies to gain access to land. These include:
 Purchase, often using capital accumulated while working as migrants in urban
areas.
 Leasing, orgaining access to land by paying rent to the owner.
 Sharecropping, orgaining access to land in return for paying the owner a Comment [H7]: test

percentage of the production.

 Inheritance or gaining access to land as an heir.
 Squatting illegally on land. E.g. Rural investment land in Ethiopia occupied by
deforestations.
In addition to such individual strategies, access to land can be provided systematically
through land reform interventions by national governments, often as a result of policies to
correct historic injustices and to distribute land more equitably. Such land reforms usually

41
occur in situations where much of the land is owned by a relatively s mall number of
land owners and the land is idle or under-utilized (although it should be noted that
determining whether land is under-utilized depends on the criteria selected for the
assessment). In some countries, land restitution has been an important type of land
reform. Other land reform interventions include land redistribution programmes which
aim at providing the rural poor with access to land and promoting efficiency and
investment in agriculture. These programmes are often, but not always, accompanied by
provision of subsidized agricultural services such as extension and credit. In some cases,
the state has provided access to idle or under-utilized public land but most often private
land holdings have been the source of land for resettlement purposes.

In imposed redistributive land reforms, land is taken from large land holders by the
State and transferred to landless and land-poor farmers. Compensation has been paid to
the original owners in some reforms but not in others. In some cases, the reforms have
benefitted the tenants who worked the land. Such reforms change the structure of land
ownership by transforming tenants into owners but do not change the operational
holdings. In other cases, the reforms have involved the resettlement of beneficiaries on
the expropriated lands and the creation of new farming operations. Some recent land
reform initiatives have been designed so that beneficiaries negotiate with land owners to
purchase land using funds provided by the State in the form of grants and/or loans.
Beneficiaries are usually required to form a group which identifies suitable land,
negotiates the purchase from the seller, formulates a project eligible for state grants
and/credit, and determines how the land will be allocated among the members of the
group and what their corresponding payment obligations will be.

While there is broad consensus that land reform plays an important role in rural
development where land concentration is high, great controversy surrounds the choice
of mechanisms to transfer land from large land owners to the landless and land poor.
However, this debate is well beyond the scope of this guide to address.
3.6.3. Tenure security
Security of tenure is the certainty that a person’s rights to land will be recognized by

42
others and protected in cases of specific challenges. People with insecure tenure face
the risk that their rights to land will be threatened by competing claims, and even lost as
a result of eviction. Without security of tenure, households are significantly impaired in
their ability to secure sufficient food and to enjoy sustainable rural livelihoods. Security
of tenure cannot be measured directly and, to a large extent, it is what people perceive it
to be. The attributes of security of tenure may change from context to context. For
example, a person may have a right to use a parcel of land for a 6month growing
season, and if that person is safe from eviction during the season, the tenure is secure.
By extension, tenure security can relate to the length of tenure, in the context of the
time needed to recover the cost of investment. Thus the person with use rights for 6
months will not plant trees, or invest in irrigation works or take measures to prevent
soil erosion as the time is too short for that person to benefit from the investment.
Thetenure is insecure for long-term investments even if it is secure for short-
termones.
The importance of long-term security has led some to argue that full security can arise
only when there is full private ownership (e.g., freehold) as, under such tenure, the time
for which the rights can be held is not limited to a fixed period. It is argued that only an
owner enjoy secure rights, and holders of lesser rights, such as tenants, have insecure
tenure because they are dependent on the will of the owner. It is then implied that
security of tenure comes only with holding transfer rights such as the rights to sell and
mortgage. Equating security with transfer rights to sell and mortgage is true for some
parts of the world but it is not true in many others. People in parts of the world where
there are strong community-based tenure regimes may enjoy tenure security without
wishing to sell their land, or without having the right to do so, or having strictly limited
rights to transfer (e.g., transfers maybe limited to heirs through inheritance, or sales
may be restricted to members of the community).
The sources of security may also vary from context to context:
 An important source is the community and its specific groups such as local
farmers’ organizations and water users’ associations. When neighbors
recognize and enforce a person’s rights, that person’s security increases. In many
customary tenure arrangements, people gain property rights through membership

43
 of social communities. Maintaining property rights validates membership in the
group just as much as membership facilitates the acquisition and safeguarding of
property rights.
 Governments represent another source of security as they may provide
political recognition of some rights. For example, a government may accept the
illegal encroachment and settlement of a community on state forest lands and
undertake not to evict it. However, in doing so, a government usually recognizes
the right of the community to occupy the land, but does not go as far as
recognizing the rights of individual people within the community.
 Another source may be the administrative state and the formal legal system.
The state may provide security in general by affirming the rights that people hold
as well as through specific measures such as providing protection against
trespass. Security is often seen to come from protections provided through land
registration and cadastral systems, with adjudication of disputes taking place in
the formal court system.
 In some countries, security can also be provided by coercive structures such
as “warlords” that emerge in the absence of an effective state during periods of
civil unrest. Of course, this is not a desirable source of security as these structures
may in turn prevent the development of strong communities and legal systems
necessary for good governance.
A person’s security of tenure may be threatened in many ways. Ironically, attempts to
increase the legal security of some may result in others losing their rights. For
example, titling and registration projects, if poorly designed, can reduce security of
many rural residents by failing to recognize certain rights, often held by women and
the poor, and allowing them to be merged into simplistically conceived “ownership”
rights. The rights to important uses of the land, for example, to gather minor forest
products or to obtain water, may not be recognized by the legal system and may be
effectively destroyed as a result. Of course, other types of development projects can
also result in the loss of rights to land.
Rights may also be reduced or eliminated if the state starts to enforce existing rules
that prevent access to resources. For example, more rigid enforcement of state policy

44
 on forest conservation may result in villagers being evicted from land which they have
been using for agricultural and grazing purposes.

Tenure insecurity may be caused by social changes.HIV/AIDS, for example, is

impacting the security of women in parts of Africa. Widows may lose access to land
in a legal sense if they are unable to inherit rights from their husbands and in a
practical sense if they are forced off the farms by male relatives. People may lose
rights when others ignore land tenure rules. Exploitation of unequal power
relationships within communities, for example, may result in some members
fencing off portions of communal lands for their own exclusive use, thereby
denying access by other members of the community to shared grazing lands.
Landlessness may occur, of course, for reasons other than insecure tenure. Some may
sell their land through “distress sales” (forced sales) in order to survive in times of
crises such as famine, sickness or other calamities. Other reasons for selling land may
include the need to meet social pressures such as providing a dowry for daughters
upon their marriage.

CHAPTER FOUR
RURAL LIVELIHOOD: BEYOND SUBSISTENCE FARMING
Is rural = agriculture? Or is there any difference between the notion of rural and agriculture?
The answer is the notion of rural is not the same with agriculture because not all rural areas
depend on agriculture or other rural areas engaged on nonagricultural activities and there is
diversification but traditionally there is a tendency to refer agriculture and rural as related thing.
Agriculture is a means of living in rural areas because of this they are related but they are not one
and the same. However, in order to understand rural areas we have to see agriculture, because
there is logical connection between the two. But generally the notion of rural is not equivalent
with agriculture because of:
A. In rural areas there are communities who engaged on non-farming activities
B. Nowadays households use the issue of diversification of livelihood.
Diversification: - is a process whereby rural farming households engaged on more than one Comment [H8]: test

income generating farming or non-farming activities. Or diversification is the ability to pursue

45
 more than one livelihood strategy simultaneously. Perhaps this diversification is highly
depending on the human capital and knowledge of the household, on the material asset of the
household and the kinship network (social relationship) of the household. The above 3 factors
determined the issue of diversification in rural areas.
Diversification is not a new-phenomenon among rural households i.e. since ancient times rural
households have had a tendency to diversifying their means of survival (livelihood). But in
recent time because of the increase of rural population and rural households, there is high
tendency of following the issue of diversification. But the scope and degree of diversification is
varies from society to society (country to country) i.e. because of difference in access to
resources, capital etc. we have different diversification from region to region, from community to
community and from household to household.
Regarding this diversification rural population besides farming engaged in different types
of non-forming activities such as:
A. Rural non-farming enterprise e.g. Oil processing, flour milling
B. Rural petty commodity production e.g. Production of cash crops
C. Informal business (economies) e.g. Petty trade
D. Rural industrialization e.g. Cottage industry (weaving), handicrafts etc.
Diversification can be both a survival and accumulation strategy. By survival we mean that it is
a strategy by which rural households used as subsistence or modes of existence (as a survival
mechanism). But by accumulation we mean that, rural population used it as a strategy to
accumulate resources (not as a survival mechanism).
In most cases poorer rural households use diversification as a survival strategy. I.e. most poorer
rural households forced to engage on non-farming activities because their farming activity is not
enough for survival it is subsistence farming.
But for better rural household diversification is not a question of survival, it is accumulation
strategy used to accumulate or increase their household assets (capital).As a general rural
households follow 3 major things for making livelihood; these are:
A. Agriculture intensification
B. Other livelihood interests (diversification)
C. Migration

46
 But from the 3 farming is the most dominant form of livelihood strategy in developing countries
and the most dominant type of farming in developing countries is peasant farming. Due to
government and NGO’s efforts peasant farming shows fundamental changes.
1. Peasant production and peasant farming
In order to understand peasant production and peasant farming first we have to understand to
concept peasant, perhaps this concept is outdated and now replaced by the concept farmer.
Peasants they are farm households with the access to their means of livelihood in land and
utilizing mainly family or households labour. In farm production always located in a larger
economic system but fundamentally characterized by partial integration in fragmented market.
The most defining characteristics of peasants are:
- Their livelihood depends on land
- They utilize family labor
- They use farming as subsistence (for survival) i.e. they are partially (imperfectly) integrated
- They operate within the economic system of a given country (with in larger economic system)
i.e. they are dependent on the government economic system.
- Peasants are rural people their production is for subsistence or for survival.
Farmers are rural people their production is for market. If up to 50% or more production
consume at home it is a subsistence economy. So usually peasants’ production is subsistence
economy. However farmers production is market oriented i.e. farmers are highly guided by
market principles like price, demand and supply.
Peasant production is labor intensive as oppose to capital intensive i.e. capitalist production.
Sociologist and other social scientists are interested on peasant production. Sociologist want to
study the structure and household arrangements of peasant society i.e. they study how social
factors affect peasant production. But other social science disciplines study peasant production,
to know how economic factors affect peasant production.
Characteristics of peasant production
1. The dominant economic activity of peasants is farming: i.e. farming primarily refers to
cultivation but it also includes other activities like dairy farming, bee farming, and floury culture
(flour farming) etc. i.e. when diversification increases its specialization also increases.
2. Access to land and level of differentiation: i.e. in a majority cases peasants in rural area all of
them have access to land because for agriculture land is mandatory. So this access to land

47
 differentiate peasants form non-peasants like teachers, other civil servants etc. and peasants
differentiate among each other through ownership of land, so land is the basic criteria to form
different social classes with in peasants. I.e. in peasants social stratification formed on the basis
of land ownership. So based on the amount of land they occupy there are 3 peasant classes, these
are:
A. Poor peasants
B. Middle peasants and
C. Rich peasants
Here land is the single criteria to classify the above classes.
A. Poor peasants: are those who do not own or they own very small plot of land, b/c of this they
have limited production capacity and in most cases their production is not satisfy the needs of the
household, consequently they forced to engage in non-forming activities (adapt diversification).
B. Middle peasants: they are peasants who have large enough plots of their own to assure their
family maintenance (subsistence). Here their plot of land is not enough for extra labor, it is
enough only for family members; so they are only self-sufficient.
C. Rich peasants: these are rural households whose farming is very large i.e. it is beyond the labor
power of the family members i.e. they need extra labor force to cultivate their plot of land. So
they have higher outside labor force. But they are small minority, they constitute only (5-7%) of
rural population.
3. Family labor: it is widely agreed that reliance (dependency) on household labor is a basic
defining economic characteristics of peasant production i.e. in their production process peasant
production is highly depend on family labor, except only 5% rich peasants. So this is the unique
characteristics of peasant production.
4. Capital and ambiguity of profit: one of the argument against peasant production is peasants are
not motivated by the drive to make profit, b/c their derive or motive is to satisfy the consumption
need of their member (it is their primary focus). But there is a problem to attach profit category
into peasant production b/c most peasant production is done by using family labor. So it creates
ambiguity to attach the profit margin with peasant production b/c their production activity is
consumption oriented, and they use family labor.

48
5. Consumption oriented: their production activity is consumption oriented (it is subsistence
economy) only aimed to satisfy the needs of members. So this high interest in consumption
contributes for less market interest of peasants.
But now because of different factors peasants become farmers i.e. they become market oriented.
In the 19th c a number of writers argued that peasants have politically conservative role i.e.
peasants have very little interest on politics (on changes) or they are inhibitors of change.
But in 20th c peasants began to play high political and economic roles. Eg. Peasant rebellion in
USSR, in Ethiopia Gojjam, Bale etc. consequently the current peasants are interested on politics,
because of the following factors:
1. Population pressure: i.e. because of population growth (pressure) peasants become mobile and
they are aware of other societies’ activities, consequently they become politically active.
2. The development of capitalist farming in a country side: i.e. this situation create high social
interaction between peasants and educated individuals who engaged a capitalist farming, so this
interaction increase their awareness and they become active politically.
3. The government policy: i.e. now developing countries governments have suitable policies and
agendas for peasants and they encourage peasants, because of this now they become active at
various levels of political spectrum.
So because of these conditions the 19th c conservation idea about peasants is collapsed.
2. Family farming
It is the 2nd type of farming next to peasant farming. As livelihood strategy it is located in
developed countries, family forming is undertaken agricultural enterprise owned and operated by
family units in developed nations and it combines family labor and management and it is operate
in capitalist environment where corporate business is dominant feature, so it has to be
competitive and profit oriented otherwise it will not survived.
- Peasant farming = developing nations
- Family farming = developed nations
Similarities between peasant farming and family farming
1. Both rely on family labor
2. Both operate within a given institutional setting, although the institutions are varied from country
to country.

49
3. Both have choices with regard to resource allocations. But family farming has a wider choice,
than peasant farming. Both have choices to make decision regarding resources.
4. Both face vagaries of nature like drought, and they also face the problem of vacillation of price.
But this vacillation of price is mostly common in peasant farming. B/c of lack of information.

50
 Peasant farming
1. Capital market is fragmentary (non- Family farming Comment [H9]: test

existence) and credit is obtained from local 1. Capital market is highly developed and

land lords (merchants) who usually charged credit is available from developed financial

high interest rate. institutions such as banks at competitive

2. Production inputs such as fertilizers and interest rate.

seeds may be erotically available (entirely 2. Various production inputs are available at

un-available) when they are available it high quantity and quantity.

requires formal or informal rational. 3. Market information is available usually on a

3. Information on prices of inputs and outputs nationwide basis reflecting high degree of

is very poor and incomplete as markets are integration of market

either lacking or not-integrated well. 4. There is a free hold market in land, so that;

4. The free hold market for the landless does the potential new entries can start new

not always exist and when it does; non- business and unsuccessful farmers may exist

market right of access e.g. inheritance right (change) to peasants.

is likely to be predominant. (Rigid system) 5. Fertilizers application rates are based on

5. Input use is determined by blanket detail analysis of soil types to determine

recommendations without adequate analysis types and quantities of inputs squired for a

of the nutrient requirement of the soil. particular soil.

6. It is consumption oriented. 6. It is profit oriented

Differences between the two

Generally they differ in degree of market
integration and in types of technology they
use.

51
 3. Corporate farming /mechanized or industrial agriculture
Sometimes called as capitalist farming, here we have division of labor or specialization i.e. labor,
land, capital, and management are belongs to different groups these are workers, land owners,
capital owners, and professional managers.
Sometimes land and capital owner become the same. Basically corporate agriculture is not
different from capitalist industries. The basic different is capitalist agriculture requires a large
expensive of land whereas industries usually confined to very limited land, consequently
capitalist agriculture sometimes called as open factory (the factory in the open field).
The inputs that corporate agriculture uses are different from the inputs that urban industries use.
Eg. Corporate agriculture uses anti-pests, fertilizers and seeds which is not the case in urban
industries.
- Developing countries also have plantation agriculture. It is one type of agriculture which is
similar to corporate agriculture. But it is under state (government) control and another difference
is corporate agriculture uses highly sophisticated technologies and machines, but plantation
agriculture still uses animate power and less complex technologies and machines.
Major characteristic of corporate agriculture
1. It is highly mechanized which implies that the intimate uses of inanimate (non-human) power or
machines.
2. It is capital intensive
3. It is highly competitive not only national but also internationally. They become competitive
because the farmers in developed countries are highly supported by the government various price
support mechanisms or they are subsidized by their government because of this, they become
competent both nationally and internationally. In contrary b/c of lack of support from the
government of developing nations towards their peasants (farmers), developing counties farmers
are not competitive both nationally and internationally.
4. It applies the latest technology now days there is a type of farming called precision farming
(developing nation), here farmers are in position to exactly determine the requirement of seeds,
fertilizers, pest sides, and water on each piece of land. This knowledge is so detail, it is possible
to determine input requirements for every meter or centimeter of soil (i.e. by measuring every
size of plot they can determine how much pest, seeds, fertilizes would be required.

52
 Its advantage is it encourages efficient use of inputs and they can also determine the amount of
yield they will acquire. So here there is great efficiency in use of inputs.
Other feature of corporate agriculture is, it is production oriented and there is a tendency to be
homogenous in terms of production of groups.
Crisis of rural livelihood: poverty, Drought and famine
Poverty: it is a form of deprivation from access to resources which are viral for survival (life)
Categorization of poverty:
Poverty can be physical poverty which comes due to malnutrition. Poverty of infrastructure
refers to lack of infrastructure. So there are different ways through which we can identify
different types of poverty.
Social (cultural poverty) i.e. deprivation of values, norms, anomie (a state of normlessness) so
here we see poverty at a social level.
Psychological poverty i.e. deprivation of hope, feeling of dissatisfaction or worthlessness etc. so
here we see poverty at micro (individual level).
Drought: it is the worse environmental condition (weather) characterized by high temperature Comment [H10]: test

and high shortage of rain (water) for a long period of time. So one of the major factor that
Aggravate rural poverty is drought. If drought becomes severe it evolves into hunger which
eventually evolves to famine.
Hunger: it is related with drought and famine. Hunger is not acute starvation, but it is nutritional
deficiency or malnutrition. So by hunger we mean that less quality of food (lack of better
nutritional food). Hunger is common both in rural and urban areas, when hunger extended
relatively for a longer period of time it becomes famine.
Famine: it is acute (sever) starvation which usually associated with high death rate and it usually Comment [H11]: test

happens in rural areas (it confined to rural areas).

Approaches regarding analysis of famine
There are two major approaches regarding analysis of famine these are:
1. Food availability decline approach and
2. Entitlement approach

1. Food availability decline approach

53
 This approach explains the imbalance between population growth & food production, as Thomas
Malthus explained that population grows geometrically & food production goes arithmetically.
I.e. because of different socio-environmental factors; food production decline, while population
tremendously grows. So this condition creates famine in developing nation.
2. The entitlement approach: it tries to explain famine in terms of decline in the ability of the Comment [H12]: test

population to access food & that decline due to the fact that a particular region or community
may not be accessible to resources or food.
Or they just lack the ability of purchasing. i.e. Based on this approach famine occur nor because
of the scarcity of food, but because of lack of access to food or lack of purchasing capacity to
buy food while food is available. So this approach considers the purchasing power (Access) of
the households to food instead of the availability (scarcity) of food.
In order to cope up with the problem of famine peasants use different coping strategies, but in
order to cope up with the problem of famine peasants use different coping strategies, but mainly
rural households use 4 common coping strategies to tackle down the problem of famine; these
are:
1. They try to augment their current fragile (they try to collect small amount of income by
sailing of less productive assets e.g. small stock, ornaments, small house materials etc. i.e. they
sale & try to gain small income to gain food, if the 1st strategy fail they move to the next strategy.
2. They choose to starve: they try to eat only once per day in order to face the problem, but when
it becomes beyond; they pass to the next strategy.
3. Sailing of more productive assets: like sailing of oxen, & land or their plot of land. So when
they adapt this strategy their subsistence system or livelihood strategies face many problems &
become discarded, b/c these large assets are very important assets for rural livelihood. I.e. during
the first strategy or by sailing small assets they protected their subsistence system. But now it
destroyed because they sale assets which are the base for their livelihood system.
4. Migration: the last coping mechanism is migration; here they prefer to migrate to other areas
especially to urban areas.
The above coping strategies are not random they are sequentially occur. Now days because of
problems like global warming, environmental depletion and others rural household are
vulnerable to rural poverty, drought and famine, especially in developing countries.

Part Two: Rural Development

54
 Chapter Five: Understanding Rural Development
5.1. The Meaning of Rural Development
Rural development is “Transformation of the rural community into socially, economically,
politically, educationally, orderly and materially desirable conditions, with the aim of improving
the quality of life of the rural population.” The workshop on Rural Development in Africa and
the workshop group on integrated approach to Rural Development (1996) defined Rural
Development in terms of uniform distribution of national resources. It conceived of Rural
Development as a comprehensive way of social transformation which recognizes that national
development must involve all parts of the population. Furthermore, it was defined as a
socioeconomic process which seeks to bring about a more equitable distribution of resources and
incomes within a society.
This definition of rural development, however, has to be further qualified. In the 1960’s and
early 1970’s the consensus was that intense industrialization was the main characteristic of the
perceived development path. Later, during the 70’s, mostly based on equity considerations, the
focus and definition of rural development turned to the provision of social services to the rural
poor. Since the 1970’s rural development as a concept has been highly associated with the
promotion of standards of living and as a precondition for reducing rural poverty. Rural
Development refers to a comp lex p henomenon that can be explained in terms of:

I. Economic growth, which imp lies a quantitative concept that might be measurable in terms of
increasing national income or p er cap ita income. Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient
condition for develop ment, it is narrow assumption.
II. Wellbeing that can be understood in qualitative concept, since it indicates population a higher
standard of living. It is a comp lex notion difficult to quantify as it encompasses a varied number of
factors such as the level of satisfaction of the needs of the population in terms of recreation security,
and sp iritual satisfaction etc.
Therefore, generally Rural Develop ment is: the outcome of a series of quantitative and qualitative
changes occurring among a given rural p op ulation; a rise in the standard of living and favourable changes
in the way of life of the p eop le. In general, Rural Development:
 There is no universally accepted definition of rural development

55
  As a CONCEPT, it connotes overall development of rural areas with a view to improve the quality of
life rural people.
 As a PHENOMENON, it is the result of various physical, technological, economic, socio-cultural and
institutional factors.
 As a DISCIPLINE, it is multi-disciplinary in nature representing an intersection of agricultural, social,
behavioral and management of sciences.
In short, rural development is a process that aims at improving the standard of living of the people living
in the rural areas. It is an integrated process, which includes social, economic, political and spiritual
development of the poorer sections of the society.

5.1.1. What factors affects rural development/components of RD

I. Natural resources: comprises all natural components like land, animals, minerals, climate,
etc.

II. Technology: refers to information that is employed to make use of natural resources and
other resources to achieve development purposes.

III. Demographic factors: co mprises density of population and trends of population growth.

IV. Economic factors: level production, markets, and connection of the rural economy, overall
national economy and world markets.

V. Social structures: of rural society and producers along with values or culture (landlessness
or landownership).

5.1.2. The objectives of rural development

A. Increasing per capita income: In rural area there is a wide gap between the incomes of
workers. Therefore, there is a need to diversify their sources of income through, Access to
credit, Attracting foreign and local investors and Create employment opportunity.

B. Reduction of the rural-urban migration/reduction of rural exodus: The current force

which is driving the young rural population towards the towns is not only economic, but

56
 social problem. Unless the economic and social problems facing them are resolved they
cannot be induced to stay in their rural environment.

C. Promoting the transition from the status of "peas ant" to that of "farmer": The Comment [H13]: test

transition from a subsistence economy to that of specialized farming must be paramount.

There are three major stages in the evolution of agricultural production. The first and most
primitive is the pure, "low productivity subsistence farming." The second stage might be
called "diversified or mixed agriculture" where part of the produce is grown for self-
consumption and part for sale to the commercial sector. Finally, the third stage represents
the "modern farm" which is exclusively engaged in high productivity, specialised agriculture
for the market.

D. The re-orientation and diversification of rural activities: The rural sector has been defined
as essentially made up of agriculture (including farming, livestock rising, forestry and
fishery. The income diversification activities are necessity and should be achieved once the
basic conditions are fulfilled to create wider opportunities of employment and raise the
income the HH.

5.1.3. Development Values

Values: are desired conditions in a society (e.g. health, fame, long life, high income, etc.). Todaro (1992)
classifies develop ment values into three categories: (i) life sustenance; (ii) self –esteem, and (iii) freedom.

I. Life sustenance: It is a basic value that life be sustained through fulfilling the basic needs of human Comment [H14]: test

beings. The basic needs include food, shelter, clothing, and health and protection. Economic activities
characterized with growth are necessary to attain this value. Economic growth is a necessary but
insufficient condition of develop ment. Raising p er capita income, elimination of absolute poverty,
greater emp loy ment opp ortunities and lessening income inequalities are as well necessary . Without
imp roving the levels of living (life sustenance) the prospect for development is non-existent. The first
priority of moving from a chronic state of underdevelopment to one of development must be raising
p eop le’s level of living in terms of food, shelter, clothing, footwear, education, health, employment
and other social services.
II. Self-esteem: Self-esteem is an inherent value of human beings. Self-esteem features in the sense of Comment [H15]: test

worth and self-resp ect. A sense of not to be used by others for their own ends. It is difficult to feel

57
 self-esteem without develop ment, which includes better material welfare. From this natural value of
human being, develop ment is legitimized as a goal of gaining self-esteem.
III. Freedom: Freedom is a broad value. It encomp asses freedom from social servitudes of man to Comment [H16]: test

nature, ignorance, other man, misery , institutions and dogmatic and harmful beliefs. Development is
exp ected to endow p eop le with ability of choosing. Development in wealth increases happiness,
control over nature and p hysical environment.

5.2. Sustainable Rural Development

The issue of sustainable development 2 since the early 1970s, the extent to which rural and
global environments are able to support development has been a growing area of debate. For a
long time, it was assumed that the natural environment had the capacity to regenerate more or
less indefinitely without specific measures to enable this process. Today, this optimis m has
largely been replaced by concerns over the effects of overpopulation and pollution on the
environment’s capacity to withstand and support economic development. Climate change, in
particular, is now high on the international agenda with scientists trying to better understand
climate change causes and effects and governments coming together to find ways of addressing
them – with varied success.

Environmental sustainability and climate are especially important in rural development. Poor
people in rural areas rely heavily on natural resources to meet their basic needs, such as food,
water, shelter, and energy. Moreover, they often live in areas where natural resources are
especially vulnerable to degradation and global warming – eg in arid zones, or mountainous
areas at risk from soil erosion. Because poor people are unable to invest in environmentally
sustainable technologies, short-term necessity often forces them to degrade the resources upon
which their long-term future depends – especially as population pressure on land and resources
increases. This makes them even poorer and fuels a vicious cycle of escalating poverty and
environmental degradation.

That is not to blame all rural environmental degradation on the poor. The rich also cause
environmental damage – especially via global warming. Nevertheless, there is evidence to
suggest that poverty can exacerbate certain types of environmental damage (for example, soil

58
erosion and the loss of soil fertility), and that reducing poverty can help solve some of these
problems, as well as helping the poor to cope with climatic changes that are beyond their control.
Environmental sustainability is now a central concern in rural development and the search for
technological and institutional solutions to poverty and environmental problems is a major part
of rural development efforts. In the future, rural development will also be affected by global
efforts to tackle climate change, not only in terms of how effective it is, but in other ways too.

5.2.1. Agriculture and Rural Development

To what extent is rural development the same as agricultural development? In other words , in
which case does a sectoral (agricultural) driver to rural growth is indispensable? To answer this
question we need to have an idea of the importance of agriculture within the rural world. There is
no direct measurement to uncover the importance of agriculture within the rural economy, but
we will show alternative roads which indirectly point to that measure. Agriculture is an
important component of most rural economies especially in the developing countries. It was
shown above that the size of agriculture within the local economy is sometimes used to define
rurality. Therefore, any successful rural development strategy will contain an agricultural
development component; but they are not the same thing. While agricultural development aims
at improving the welfare of populations through sustained improvements in the productivity of
the agricultural sector, rural development aims at the improvement of welfare of rural
populations through the sustained growth of the rural economy, which includes agriculture, but
may not be its only component and not necessarily the most dynamic.

Ideally, if we wanted to know the importance of agriculture within a rural area, we would look at
the GDP or output figure for that region, and measure the share of agricultural output within the
total value added of the region. Unfortunately only few countries have aggregate output figures
available by region (state or province), and even at this regional level, output is aggregated for
both rural and urban areas. We show above that the importance of agriculture within the national
economy falls with development, but this does not necessarily mean that the relative importance
of agriculture in the rural economy also falls with development (given that rurality also falls with
development). Poorer countries, with lower per capita income, and with higher incidence of
poverty, not only are more rural, but in their economies agriculture has a higher relative weight.

59
Thus, the poorer the economy, the more important agriculture is for its rural and overall
development. Another road to measure the value of agriculture in the rural economy is to
examine the share of income fro m agriculture to total rural income. In the past, organizations and
experts define agricultural development as the increase in agricultural production, while rural
development as the improvement of the quality of rural life.

Rural development is broader than agricultural development, encompassing many sectors and
addressing links between the social, technical, economic, political, institutional and ecological
dimensions of rural change. Its goal is essentially achieving equitable growth to benefit the poor
in rural areas. The means include investment in agriculture, improved rural services and
infrastructure, institutional reform, technological change, economic change, political reform – all
combined with measures to ensure environmental sustainability. It requires a truly multi-
disciplinary approach.

5.2.2. Rural development as a cyclic process

Four stages can be found in all kinds of development processes. They can also be found at
different scales from the initiative of an individual to the programmes of a national or
international development agency. They are typically repeated many times to fine adjust a
development process, according to Jibowo (1992), which consists of five stages of a rural
development programme as follows:
1) Enquiry: obtaining reliable and valid information about the target community (Availability
of Rural Rapid Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PPR) tools have been
found to be effective to achieve this in recent time).
2) Planning: base on information obtained from enquiry. It should involve interventionists
(administrators), local change agents, representatives of the rural people and related
agencies’ officials as stakeholders.
3) Implementation: action time for all concerned as stakeholders in systematic manner toward Comment [H17]: test

realizing the stated goals of the intervention.

4) Adjustment: necessary institutionalization and change resulting from the intervention.

60
5) Evaluation: adequate attention should be given to monitoring and review of the process to
accommodate in process modifications and at the end to determine how far the set goals have
been realized and provide a basis for further action.
o Major Strategies of Rural Development
A rural development strategy is a systematic, comprehensive and reliable tool aimed at bringing
about desirable rural transformation. A strategy for rural development is expected to produce
results; therefore it is tested and found effective under certain circumstances before being
introduced under similar circu mstances in another setting. Its expected effectiveness could be
due to the fact that it is developed from testing variables. It could also be because it is developed
on the basis of experience which had worked. A review of various rural developments programs
and policies in many developing countries reveals four general strategies of rural development.
These are;
1/ Growth-oriented Strategy
2/ Welfare-oriented Strategy
3/ Responsive Strategy
4/ Integrated or Holistic Strategy
1/ Growth-oriented Strategy
This is based on the philosophy that rural people, like any other people, are rational decision
mak ers, who, when given adequate opportunity and a proper environment, will try to maximize
their incomes. The role of the state in this strategy is to build infrastructure, and maintain a
favorable climate to stimulate the growth of rural enterprises. The critical assumption of this
strategy is that the benefits of increased production will gradually ‘trickle down’ to the poor. The
regulation and coordination of the activities of private and public agencies is primarily through
market mechanisms. But this paradigm failed to make any dent on the basic problems of poverty,
unemployment and inequality in many developing countries and was abandoned.
2. Welfare-oriented strategy
This seeks to promote the well-being of the rural population in general, and the rural poor in
particular through various programs. The primary means used in this strategy are free
provision/distribution of goods, services and civic amenities in rural areas.
The critical assumptions of this strategy are that people are not competent to identify and resolve
their problems, and that government specialists can identify their needs and meet them with the
61
financial and administrative resources available within the government. The role of villagers is
that of passive receptors of services. This strategy has a paternalistic orientation. The
performance of the programs is judged by the quantity of goods, services, and civic amenities
delivered. The welfare oriented programs present a mixed picture; the rural poor have benefited
significantly through some programs in a few areas, but not in others. There are two major
criticis ms of this strategy, namely a/ it has created dependence b/ it requires resources that are
beyond the means of government.
3. Responsive Strategy
This is aimed at helping rural people help themselves through their own organizations and other
support systems. Its concern is with responding to the felt needs of the rural people, as defined
by them. The role of the government is to facilitate the self-help efforts of the rural people by
providing technologies and resources that are not locally available. The critical assumption of
this strategy is that the rural poor will identify and resolve their problems if provided with
minimal support and otherwise left to their own devices and initiatives. Community participation
in, and control of, project activities is the primary performance indicator of this strategy. Many
voluntary agencies are also following this strategy.
4. Integrated or Holistic Strategy
This combines all the positive features of the earlier three strategies, and is designed to
simultaneously achieve the goals of growth, welfare, equity and community participation. This
paradigm takes a very comprehensive but integrated view of the basic problems of poverty,
unemployment, and inequality, and seek s to address the physical, economic, technological,
social motivational, organizational and political bases of these problems.

The multiple goals of this strategy are sought to be achieved by building the capacity of the
community to involve itself in development in partnership with the government. The critical
assumption underlying this approach is that the government can restructure societal power
relationships, and centralized bureaucracies can learn to share power with community groups.
Successful implementation of this strategy requires complex decentralized matrix structures,
with permanent mechanisms for vertical and lateral integration, a combination of specialists and
generalist skills, institutional leadership, social intervention capability and systems management.
Given the weak organizational structure of developing countries, which does not have many of
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 the prerequisites discussed earlier for the successful implementation of this strategy, there is very
little hope that this paradigm would yield the desired results.

5.3. Approaches for Rural Development

The approaches which have been adopted for rural development by many developing countries
include: Community development, Agricultural extension, Cooperatives, Integrated Rural
Development.

A/ Community Development
Community development is a relatively new concept which gained currency after the Second
World War. It was conceptualized because of the necessity to take people into account, make
government more broad based, and ensure enlightened public participation in the affairs of the
nation. Community development deals with simple things and unsophisticated people. It seeks to
draw people’s energy, imagination and initiative to build up a nation.
Community development is defined by some as a method of working with people having as its
objective the activation of the community towards self-improvement. It aims at bringing change
of attitudes and behaviours towards development on the part of the individual community
members. By its very nature it does not impose solutions for it destroys the very fabric of society;
It aims at making the people recognize their situation so that they take measures in their own
accord.
Objectives of Community Development
Community development program can be undertaken both in rural and urban areas, aiming at the
same general objective. It is an activity primarily designed to create better living conditions and
benefit for the whole community. To meet this objective, it requires the interest and ability of
community members,
 to organize themselves for planning and action
 to define their common needs and problems
 mak e plans to meet their needs and solve their problems

63
 execute these plans with much reliance upon community resources.
/ Agricultural Extension Comment [H18]: test

Agricultural extension is currently considered as one of the best programs for rural development,
especially suitable for small farm activities. Through extension services improved agricultural
inputs, education and training, and technical skills are disseminated to farmers. Agricultural
extension contributes meaningfully to rural development programs when it goes along with other
rural development programs such as cooperatives, community development and integrated rural
development program.
Agricultural extension has been defined differently but in somewhat related manner, but the most
comprehensive one being that offered by FAO, which defines agricultural extension as,
An informal, out-of-school educational services for training and influencing farmers (and their
families) to adopt improved practices in crop and livestock production, management,
conservation and marketing. Concern is not only with teaching and securing adoption of a
particular improved practice but also changing the outlook s of the farmer to the point where he
will be receptive to and on his own initiative, continuously seek means of improving his farm
business and home.
Agricultural extension is an educational process with dual purposes:
1/ Through extension, education, information and technology are transferred to the farmers to
help them improve their productivity; and 2/ The problems, the needs, and other related
information are also transferred to agricultural education and research centers.
Objectives of Agricultural extension
The main objective of agricultural extension, as indicated above, is to teach people living in
rural areas how to raise their standard of living by their own efforts, using their own resources
with the minimum of assistance from government. By encouraging local leadership and a spirit
of self-help, extension develops civic pride and the progressive growth of the community.
Accordingly, the aim of agricultural extension is to find out what the farming community feels
its needs, what are the problems involved, and to provide answers to those problems.

C/ Cooperative

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 A cooperative is a socio-economic organization formed to fulfill both the economic and social
needs and interests of its members. A cooperative has its own values and principles which
distinguish it from other forms of organizations. These are equality, equity, and mutual help.
A cooperative has three dimensions, economic, social and moral. The very motto of cooperative,
“Each for all, and all for each” signifies loyalty, trust faith, and fellowship.
A cooperative is a typical democratic institution of the members, for the members, by the
members. The decision making system is based on ‘one member one vote system.
Principles of Cooperative
According to the International Cooperative Alliance (1995), cooperatives have seven principles.
These are;
1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic members’ control
3. Members’ economic Participation & limited interest on share capital
4. Autonomy and independence
5. Provision of cooperative education, training and information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for the community
A Cooperative is similar and at the same time different from other forms of business
organization. The similarity lies in that like any other business organization, Cooperatives are
expected to ensure profitability and efficiency. But, unlike other business organizations,
Cooperative has dual functions –economic as well as social functions.
Cooperative as a rural development program makes, among others, the following major
contributions:
 mobilization of people’s resources and political power
 identification and development of local leaders
 provision of goods and services of high quality at low prices
 Elimination of the middle men
 Provision of modern technology
 Creation of employment opportunities
 Promotion of education and mutual understanding among members
In general, cooperative promotes the social and economic well-being their members.
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 D/ Integrated Rural Development Program
The concept of ‘integration’ is a very recent idea originated as a result of disappointment over
the past few years in the incoherent and unsuitable character of some action programs and
sectoral approaches in rural and agricultural development programs which failed to bring
meaningful development in the developing countries.
The ‘integrated approach’ is basically a matter of “methodology” which denotes the method and
logic a certain development program should be based. The basic idea underlying Integrated
Approach is that all sectors must systematically and logically be integrated to contribute
effectively towards progress.
The Integrated Approach seeks to improve the general well-being of people through multi-
sectoral projects by concentrating efforts that maximize efficiency in certain selected areas.
The Integration Approach has two general principles:
1/ Integration of objectives
2/ Integration of structures
1/ Integration of objectives Comment [H19]: test

The integration of objectives implies the setting-up of compatible general and specific sectoral
objectives with regard to each in terms of the other.
Setting goals on a joint basis resolves,
 the problem of infighting over resource allocation.
 facilitates team-work, coordination of decision-making and implementation structures
 creates motivation in the implementing agencies when issues are identified in a multi-
disciplinary manner and solutions and programs are decided in a complimentary and integrated
manner.
2/ The integration of structure
The integration of structure indicates the creation of most appropriate institutional structure to
achieve a functional integration between the various administrative and technical bodies
involved in the planning and implementation of programs.
Formulation of an Integrated Program/Project
The basic principles underlying the integration of objectives and structures can be demonstrated
by looking at the main phases of general planning.
A typical Planning Model for integrated program has four main phases:
66
 Phase I –Analysis of the Initial Situation
Identification of issues
Selection of priorities
Formulation of possible solutions
 Phase II –Setting-up the Decision-making and Institutional Structures
 Phase III –Formulation of Programs and Operational Plans
 Phase IV –Implementation, Coordination and Evaluation

Chapter Six

An Over View Of Rural Ethiopia

6.1. Introduction

Ethiopia‘s economy and the well-being of its more than 90 million(CSA,2013) citizens depend
on the productivity of its natural resources, principally land and water that are used for
production of crops and animals that provide more than 40% of Ethiopia‘s GDP. Governance of
these resources is shared between the federal government and nine ethnically based regional
governments. The decentralized approach to government further extends public sector oversight
and involvement to district (woreda) and local (k ebele) levels. Average farm sizes in Ethiopia
are small with more than 85% of farming households operating less than 2 hectares and, in 2000,
more than 40% having 0.5 hectares or less. Since the 1980s, Ethiopia has, been a major recipient
of emergency food and cash assistance from the international community. Access to land is a
critical issue for millions of farm households. Highly variable rainfall patterns have resulted in
recurrent drought and crop/livestock loss, while in good years markets have been unable to
absorb surplus production. Establishment of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange is now helping
to absorb this surplus by streamlining marketing and facilitating warehousing, financing and
open price discovery via auction.
The average household size is 4.7 persons, which is slightly slower than the average of 4.8
persons per household reported in 2000.Urban households have fewer members than rural
households. In urban areas the average household size is 3.6 persons, compared with 5.0 persons
67
in rural areas. About one-fourth (23 percent) of Ethiopian households are headed by women, a
slight decrease from 24 percent in 2000. Single-person households are more common in urban
areas (20 percent) than in rural areas (4 percent). Also, a much lower proportion of urban
households (18 percent) have six or more members than do rural households (41 percent).
6.2. Land Use
Ethiopia covers an area of 1,127,127 square kilo meters, of which an estimated 34% is
agricultural, 9.6% is arable, an estimated 3.6 is forested, and 48.9% is covered by woodlands and
shrubs. Only 4.5% of arable land is irrigated. Protected areas encompass 14% of Ethiopia‘s land
area. An estimated 15 of Ethiopia‘s people live in urban areas, making it one of the least
urbanized counties in the world. This low degree of urbanization highlights the importance of
land access for rural livelihoods. Eighty percent of all Ethiopians depend, either directly or
indirectly, upon agricultural and livestock production for their livelihoods. In 2007, agriculture
and allied activities comprised 43% of Ethiopia‘s GDP (WRI 2007; Seleshi 2010; CBD 2009;
EIU 2008). Smallholder agriculture is the most important sector of Ethiopia‘s economy.
Agriculture accounts for almost 90% of exports. Crop production contributes to 35% of GDP.
Cereals account for 80% of crop production in both area and value while oilseeds and pulses
contribute nearly 15% of the value. The steady rise of cereal production has provided Ethiopia
with a growing source of food security.

Ethiopia is also one of the largest livestock producers in Africa. Livestock accounts for nearly
10% of GDP and 30% of the employment of the agricultural labor force. Livestock exports to the
Middle East – both live and as chilled meat – have been an important source of foreign exchange
in recent years, second only to coffee. Permanent pastures comprise 63% of agricultural land.
Despite the importance of livestock and pasture for the agricultural sector, the claims of
pastoralists to land and pasture, particularly in the South, are poorly recognized or upheld by
Federal, regional, or state authorities. Conflicting claims on grazing resources have reportedly
been a contributing factor to some violent clashes (EIU 2008; UNSTATS 2007; Halderman
2004; Helland 2006; Hundie and Padmanabhan 2008; Beyene and Korf 2008).

6.2.1. Land Distribution

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Successive national governments in Ethiopia have implemented differing approaches to the
distribution of rural land. The imperial regime of Haile Selassie allocated land ownership to
political supporters without regard to its occupation or use by farming populations. This created
a feudal regime of landholdings in much of the country, with many farmers operating tenancies
on lands held by absentee landlords. Growing popular anger and unrest over the oppressive and
inequitable effects of this feudal tenure system, particularly the large-scale eviction of tenants to
give way for commercial farming, were major factors leading to a coup in 1974 by a cadre of
military officers (the Derg) and the overthrow of the Emperor. Land to the Tiller, the slogan and
rallying cry of the opposition, mainly composed of high school and university students before the
1974 Revolution, became the basis for the Nationalization of Rural Lands Proclamation of 1975
and subsequent sweeping land reform.
Between 1976 and 1991, the Derg implemented a series of reforms in which ―all rain-fed
farmland in highland Ethiopia was confiscated and redistributed, after adjusting for soil quality
and family size, among all rural households‖ (Devereux et al. 2005, 121).
The military Derg regime redistributed previously ―privatized land to farming households but
went further than that, repeatedly redistributing land every year or two with the aim of achieving
an equitable allocation land use rights, such frequent redistribution reduced land access and
undermined secure ownership of land and natural resources for both current land holder and
inheritance by children. Moreover, the Derg retained state ownership of some large properties,
setting them up as state-owned and -operated farms.

The government formed by Ethiopian People‘s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in

1991 largely maintained the policies of the Derg with regard to land, assigning ownership to the
state and use-rights to farmers and livestock keepers, while prohibiting sales and
collateralization, encouraging redistributions at the village (kebele) and district (woreda) levels
to avoid landlessness, and permitting limited leasing and inheritance rights to be exercised.
Gradually, more authority for land distribution policies was delegated to regional states, and
several regional governments began experimenting with different approaches to land
redistribution in order to increase rural tenure security. However, this changed in 2005, when the
adverse effects of frequent land redistribution was recognized by federal government which

69
limited forced land redistribution to only irrigation development areas in Proclamation No.
456/2005 (Holden and Yohannes 2001).
Though it is widely believed that Ethiopia‘s approach to land access and use has resulted in a
highly equitable distribution of land, there is substantial evidence that this may not be true. The
vast majority of rural holdings are small (less than 2 hectares) and fragmented (average holdings
of 2.3 plots), many farms are less than one hectare and a not-insignificant number of households
are landless (Rahmato and Assefa 2006; Abegaz 2004; Griffin et al. 2001; Gebreselassie 2006).

Additional land can only be acquired through leasing, as current policy restricts consolidation of
holdings and prohibits the sale or purchase of holdings. Some researchers also contend that land
distribution in contemporary Ethiopia is no more equal than in other African countries and that
the unchallenged assumption of egalitarian distribution is used to reject private ownership of
land. While the right of women‘s access to land is stated in the Constitution, anecdotal evidence
suggests that women‘s role and involvement in decisions regarding the allocation and use of
landholdings at the local level remains limited (Kebede 2008; Mersha and Githinji 2005; Stein
and Tefera 2008).
6.3. Rural Development Policies
Ethiopia is predominantly rural (84% of population is rural), agriculture is the mainstay of the
country’s economy, 80% of labor force is agriculture, 50% of GDP comes from agriculture, 60%
of exports come fro m agriculture. Therefore, government policy should be: Rural-based and
agriculture-driven that is supported by country’s chief and abundant resources are land and labor.
Accordingly, government of Ethiopia introduced Poverty reduction strategies:
a) First poverty reduction program – sustainable development and poverty reduction program
(SDPRP) introduced in 2002 that gave emphasis on increased provision of agricultural
extension services, training of extension agents (DAs) at TVET, training of farmers in
various productivity enhancing techniques, pro mote private sector growth & development,
rapid export growth through high value crops, undertake major investment in education,
deepen and strengthen the decentralization, improving governance, agricultural research,
water harvesting and small scale irrigation, undertaking investment in education to enhance
human capital development etc…

70
These and other related activities would have the effect of promoting rural-urban linkages
Achieving sustainable development and reducing poverty are closely linked with UN declaration
in September 2000-2015 on Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable development goals-
SDG(2015-2030) 3 were launched and Ethiopia is part of the agreement as United Nation member
country . Ethiopia’s poverty reduction strategy is the primary vehicle for achieving MDGS, Eight
Millennium Development Goals and 17 SDGs.
1) Eradication of poverty (i.e., halving the no of poor people)
2) Achieving universal primary education
3) Promote gender equality and empower women
4) Reduce child mortality rate
5) Improve maternal health
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7) Ensure environmental sustainability
8) Develop global partnership for development
b) The second poverty reduction strategy was launched (2005/06-2009/10) – Program for
Accelerated and Sustainable Development to End Poverty (PASDEP). Here the linkages
between the rural and urban was given due attention, promoting cooperatives – federal
cooperative agency was established, land registration and certification programs to ensure
security of tenure (started in 2003), resettlement program, micro and small enterprises to
make credit available to rural people, productive safety net scheme implemented in 2005, the
productive safety net scheme covers as many as 8 million households and has three
components. SDPRP is part of the government’s poverty reduction strategy (PRS) aimed at
eradication of hunger and reduction of poverty. Major focuses are: Improving human and
rural development, improving food security, capacity building through transformation of the
smallholder peasant agriculture.

3
Sustainable Development Goals: Have 17 Goals, 169 Targets And 194 UN Member Countries Focus
On: 1)No Poverty, 2)Zero Hunger, 3)Good Health And Wellbeing, 4)Quality Education, 5) Gender
Equality, 6)Clean Water And Sanitation, 7)Affordable And Clean Energy, 8)Decent Work And
Economic Growth, 9)Industry, Invasion And Infrastructure, 10)Reduce Inequality, 11)Sustainable
Cities And Communities, 12)Responsible Consumption And Production, 13)Climate Action, 14) Life
Below Water, 15) Life On Land, 16) Peace, Justice And Strong Institution, 17) Partnerships For The
Goals.
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Major emphasis is given to ADLI( Agriculture development lead to industrialization) as
agriculture is the main livelihood source ADLI is one of the building blocks of government’s
sustainable development and poverty reduction program that recognizes agriculture as an engine
of growth and stresses the use of agricultural technologies that are capital saving.Agriculture
development lead to industrialization is premised on the basic understanding that has been
implemented through extension package program aimed at:
– Making credit available to small farmers to buy package of inputs
– Supply of production enhancing farming technologies mainly chemical fertilizers and
seeds
– Building the capacity of farmers (through training) to efficiently use package of inputs
and manage their farms
– Establishing institutes for training diploma level extension agents
c) Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP)
Since 2010 the government launched an ambitious policy dubbed as Growth and Transformation
Plan: Agricultural growth, industrial growth, expanding road infrastructure (railroad) and
expanding power infrastructure (Great Renaissance Dam) and multi sectorial development plan
through GTP-I(2010-2015) and GTP-II (2015-2020).
6.4. Ethiopian Agricultural Policy and Investment Framework (PIF)
The Government of Ethiopia has articulated long term vision to become a middle income4
country by 2020. In that context the millennium development goals and sustainable development
goals are to be met. The main strategy for fulfilling that vision was Agricultural Development
Led Industrialization (ADLI). The starting point for this vision was an economy dominated by
low productivity agriculture on potentially highly productive resources. However, so far the
efforts to achieve the vision have been underway for several years, and progress has been made
and basis for further progress has been built. Nevertheless the country has progressed only part
way to the vision from the initial conditions described above. There is much yet to be done. A 20
year vision includes a radical transformation of the economic structure of the economy and
equally radical improvements in income, food security, health, and education. In the normal
process of economic growth and in this 20 year vision, non-agricultural sectors should grow

4
Middle income is defined as per capita income of $1000.
72
 more rapidly than agriculture, particularly in rapid growth contexts. Thus, it is inevitable that
with rapid growth.

6.5. Historical over view of land Tenure in Rural Ethiopia

A. The situation before 1974
During 1960’s Ethiopia was described to have the potential to be the bread basket of the horn
of Africa and Middle East .This idea was supported by the fact that the country was endowed
with adequate land mass, fertile soil, sufficient rain fall, variety of climates and elevations
and large number and strong peasantry. However the economy remained stagnant and thus
the potential for economic growth couldn’t be realized. There are various explanation s for
Ethiopia’s underdevelopment. For our purpose we can see the explanation at two levels.
I. Cultural and psycho behavioral explanation; until the 1960’s it was believed that backward
traditions and strong cultural patterns held back economic development .It was argued the
country’s’ historical isolation and feudal structure had created an inward looking peasantry
,not open to agricultural innovation and development .This approach appears to lead the
conclusion that the peasant was lazy and fatalistic .
II. Land based explanation; by the early 1970’s the explanation of Ethiopia’s
underdevelopment come to center on; the relationship b\n peasant agriculture and the
economy i.e. the economy was not developed because it was in the hands of the peasant
subsistence agriculture., the historical attitude of the government towards agrarian
development\production; a focus on modernization theory that advocate advances in
industry, the general pattern of land holding and the failure of land reform movement etc.
III. The former cultural and behavioral explanation of Ethiopia’s underdevelopment was rejected
and replaced by land based explanation .Therefore; pre-1974 Ethiopia’s rural development
was blocked by the existing land tenure systems and wrong development strategies.
B. The pre-1974 land tenure system
In Ethiopia, before the 1975 proclamation to provide for the public ownership of rural lands,
there existed different land tenure systems .some of the past land tenure systems include;
 Rist(land inherited by a family or a group of families from a remote ancestor ) ,
 Rist-gult (land disposed of by the state to a person, family or any legal organization,

73
 Gult (a form of tenure which entitled the guarantee the right to collect land- tax fro m land
holders and administer the area)
 ,Madria (state land temporarily given to officials or soldiers ),
 Hudad (government land worked by gebars and \or district governors ,
 Semon (land given to church personnel).
Gebars were tribute paying peasants .The various tenure system can be reduced in to two
broader systems .The communal holding of the north and the private ownership system of the
south.
1) The North
The most common form of land holding system in the north was called rist system .It is kinship
based system of land distribution .An individual can claim for land through both parents because
of the descent system is ambilinear . Individual’s right was not to own a particular plot of land
but to use it under a collective ownership. In rist system areas certain government officials, the
royal families or other ruling class members assigned as administrators. These groups had the
right to collect a share of the product of all agricultural land in a given area in exchange for their
administrative, political, cultural and judicial services. This right was known as gult rigt .Each
church and monastery has a gult ,land form which it collected a share in addition to some land
for church personnel who cultivated crops for their own upkeep. Gult right enabled the feudal to
lead luxurious life while the majority of the peasants were suffering from poverty.
2) The South
The southern and southwestern part of Ethiopia were brought under emperor menelik’s rule
towards the end of the 19th century. Emperor Menelik gave the right to use the land and collect
tax. Initially most of the recipients were not interested in land for cultivation, but in collecting
contributions from productive peasants. Peasants were encouraged to continue to produce as far
as they could remain submissive and as long as they deliver the required contribution to the new
masters… (Pawsewang1990:42-3). Gradually however the land lords succeeded in convincing
the emperor to make their rights hereditary. While rist-gult (hereditary gult) was rare in the
south, it became a rule in the south. Later on emperor Haileselassie granted rights of free hold –
as alien concept-in Ethiopia-to owners of rist- gult and other recipients of imperial land grant.
This was done to encourage foreign and domestic investment in agriculture. After the Italian
occupation, Haileselassie instituted the payment of taxes in money directly to the government,
74
legally recognized the tax payer (gebar) as land owner. Again the peasants were not aware of the
significance of legal changes .Thus it was not the peasantry or the real gebar who paid the tax
and become land owner, rather the former rist- gult holders or free holders collected taxes from
peasants and registered in their own names as tax payers.
C) Pre-1974 Government Policy towards Rural Development
Between 1957 and 1974 the government of Haileselassie attempted to develop the country
through a serious of national development plans .In the initial phases of such plans agriculture
was not given the necessary attention .But latter constraints of agricultural growth have been
identified and the importance of small-holder sector was recognized and a strategy was proposed
.yet, only limited progress was made .This is because of the land tenure and other structural
constraints prevailed by them. In addition, the rural majority were neglected by the urban biased
development strategies.
D) Post -1974 Situation in Ethiopia
In 1974, Ethiopia’s agrarian strategies and blocked development combined with Eritrean
problem, drought, famine, worldwide inflation, urban unrest and military pay mutinies were the
conditions for the overthrown of Haileselassie’s regime and its replacement by military
government. The land holding system and the development strategies adopted by the imperial
regime were viewed ineffective. Consequently the land reform proclamation, issued in March
1975, was considered to be the most important step for country’s development. It was the
product of “land to the tiller” slogan that aimed at making cultivators benefit from the product
of their own labor by breaking land lord-tenancy relationship. The purpose of the reform
proclamation include
 The abolition of private ownership of land and its distribution among the immediate tillers
 All rural lands were made the collective property of Ethiopian people
 Abolition of exploitative relationship b/n the peasantry and land lords ,the latter was deprived
of basic rights
 Abolition of hired labor
Implementation of the land reform proclamation
Soon after the proclamation peasant associations (PAs) were felt to be the best means for
implementing the program .Thus, PAs were organized with the responsibility of distributing land
to those who are willing and able to work. PAs were responsible for
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 A) Facilitating the land reform program
B) Ensuring political and economic freedom of peasants
C) Accelerating social development by improving production
The effect of land reform in Ethiopia
I. Effect on land distribution: Before 1974, the bulk of peasantry owned insignificant size of
land and in some cases peasantry has no right to own land. After the reform the peasants
benefited more in such ways
 Complete security in using the land
 Benefit from their own produce (unlike the previous time where a portion of their
produce goes to the feudal land lords and leaders).
However, there are people argue in another direction as there is no significant difference before
and after the reform .This is because what was distributed is what was under cultivation and the
abolition of private ownership of land have challenged the security of farmers/peasantry,
discourage their initiatives, and degrade their creativity and investment.
II. Effects on production: The immediate impact of the reform was decline in productivity and
shortage of food supply. Increased rural consumption, war and drought have contributed to
the decline.
III. Effects on employment: The guarantee to work on lands as one likes and resettlement
programs were believed to widen the spectrum of employment in rural areas and discourage
rural –urban migration. But the migration continued b/c employment opportunities remained
to be limited.
IV. Effects on the level of living: The living condition of Ethiopian people in general and the
rural people in particular become deteriorated. Among other factors low agricultural
productivity, wrong development policy, drought, continued war heavy tax totally
incapacitated the rural sector.
Villagization and Resettlement programs
Villagization: is a process by which rural households are moved from a scattered dwellings in to
villages. The first villagization campaign was launched in Ethiopia in 1977 during which one
third of the country’s rural population (over 12 million) was villagized.
Objectives of villagization in Ethiopia

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Generally speaking it was government attempt to modernize rural life and agricultural production
patterns. Official documents stated it as a pre-requisite for efficient utilization of national
resources and an appropriate and adequate approach to rural development. Villagization was
seen as a means to provide better service to rural Ethiopia. First it was began in Bale during the
ethio-somali war in 1977-78.one of the main objective of the program at that time was to
guarantee the safety of local inhabitants from invading Somali troops.
Resettlement
Neither planned nor spontaneous resettlement program is new in Ethiopian history. The
sporadic movement of people was not uncommon during both Menelik’s and Haileselassie’s
regime. The voluntary resettlement of over a million people b/n 1950’s &1970’s expanded the
cultivated land by 25%. Few government resettlement schemes were undertaken before1974
.until then the planned resettlement remained a marginal phenomenon involving a total of 6500
households in 21 sites. Planned resettlement of a large number of people began after the 1973/74
Wollo famine that took 200,000 lives.
E. Post 1991 situation in Ethiopia
The fall of the Derg brought a serious of crisis on rural institutions. Peasant Associations(PA)
were replaced by peace and stability committees while service cooperatives that survived
destruction were suspended for some time. A new economic policy was issued by the transitional
government in 1991 which prioritize the performance of peasant agriculture. It also assured the
public ownership of land but some corrective measures were taken to compensate the previously
discriminated peasants. The common practice of land distribution was to accommodate new
claims through small allotments or freezing new allocations. Fall of Derg brought a series of
changes in rural institutions:
– Service cooperatives, schools and government offices were attacked and looted
– Producers’ cooperatives (involving collective ownership of all the means of production) were
abandoned
– Peace & stability committees replacing PA were established
– Shortly after, PA and service cooperatives were reintroduced in 1992 because of the valuable
service they were rendering
– Derg’s agricultural and economic policy was discontinued and new economic policy for
transition was introduced in 1992. However, fresh redistribution was promised to correct the
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 discriminatory nature of previous land allocation. The issue of future land redistribution
aroused every one’s concern:
 Those who lost land during Derg were eager to know if fresh redistribution would restore
their lost land
 Those who benefited from the land reform were apprehensive
 The landless and land hungry would like to see fresh redistribution as they had nothing to
lose
 The average peasant was not keen since from experience fresh redistribution would lead to
leveling down of the holdings.
In any case, fresh redistribution would not alleviate the root cause of land scarcity since in
most parts of the country most of the land was already occupied.Regarding the land issue there
were two polar views during the transition period (1991-1995):
1) Public ownership rights in land, mainly advocated by EPRDF
2) Individual ownership rights in land, mainly advocated by the opposition and international
financial institutions such as IMF and the World Bank. Each camp presented arguments for
and against why one type of ownership is preferred over the other.

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