Land Use and Property Rights in Northern Ethiopia: Smallholder Farming Systems Response to Environmental and Social Changes

In this study, three interrelated aspects have empirically emerged as determinant in the state of land degradation and its management practices: livelihood, dwelling and land tenure. The livelihood system encompasses concepts of the agricultural use value of the land and how land use itself is situated in broader social relationships. Institutionalized practices, such as sharecropping, explain how management aspects of the land enter productive relationships among villagers. The dwelling aspect, being a broader part of the relations and commitments of the villagers to their landscape, explains land users? perception and values of the land. The land tenure systems have secured local people?s user rights to land. Nonetheless, the tenure systems are poor in promoting farm integrity, long-term security and transfers of land resources to more competitive and productive farmers. Future approaches that aim to promote good land and agricultural management practices should consider these broader issues simultaneously.