THE DEBATE OVER RURAL LAND TENURE POLICY OPTIONS IN ETHIPOPIA.REVIEW OF THE POST-1991 CONTENDING VIEWS

Abstract

that private tenure, iN contrast to the existiNg public ownership of land will, inter
alia, provide peasants with tenure securitY and render Ihem strong jncentives to
invest 0n their land and thlis improve agricultural performance, This study is also
a response to 'the assertaion that the Ethiopian peasants will not sell their land
under private ownership: alternatively, land marketing couid be restricted through
various conttrolling mechanisms under private tenure. While assessillg both
arguments for the rentaion of the existing public tenure and the restoration
(mainly  in the case of southern region) of private ownership, the article
challenges the advocacy of privatisalioll of rural land. This is simply because
there exist little or no empirical data, above all, that show farmers' opinions about
the existing tenure system and  their attitudes towards the suggested ten lire policy
options. in other words, the current argument for land tenure policy
transformation in Elhiopia is more theoretical than experiential, It is this
concluded that the recent advocacy of a policy change in land ownership is
essentially based on theoretical assumptions rather than 0n empirical data that is
collected from the field to substantiate the,claim that the existillg system is inferior
to the sought private tenure. The article recommends rigorous field researches.
which represent all parts of llle country, particlilarly southern regions that
experienced severe adverse affects of private tenure and the associaIed land sales
Thorough studies are usefull in narrowing down the exisling research gap and in
creating better ullderstanding of the possible rural land tenure policy option(s) in the future