Economic and Agricultural Transformation through Large-scale Farming: Impacts of large-scale farming on local economic development, household food security and the environment in Ethiopia

Maru Shete Bekele successfully defended his dissertation Economic and Agricultural Transformation through Large-scale Farming. Impacts of large-scale farming on local economic development, household food security and the environment in Ethiopia on 25 October at Leiden University.

The result of his study indicated that large-scale farms generally undermined local level food security and incomes, generated little employment opportunities for the local population, deteriorated the local environment, especially in terms of vegetation cover and soil quality, and contributed little to local economic development, such as infrastructure construction, technology transfer, and generating fiscal revenue and foreign currency.

The study concludes that the approach of large-scale mechanized farming contributes little to the economic and agricultural transformation of the nation. Local people generally lose out in respect of land transactions and investments, and they are expropriated from their customary land rights to the benefit of national goals. The outcome contradicts with the ethno-linguistic federal state arrangement of the country in which federated states manage their resources to improve their local development.

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Promoters: Prof. Ton Dietz (ASCL, Leiden University), Prof. Annelies Zoomers (Utrecht University). Copromoter: Dr Marcel Rutten (ASCL, Leiden University).