“POVERTY AND LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES OF RURAL LANDLESS IN AMHARA REGIONAL STATE OF ETHIOPIA: THE CASE OF MECHA DISTRICT”

Abstract

Access to land is an important issue for the majority of Ethiopian people who, in one way or the other, depend on agricultural production for their income and subsistence. However, agricultural land is becoming very scarce, fragmented and its productivity becomes diminishing. In Amhara Region no land redistribution has happened for the last 18 years. This means that farmers, particularly the youth, who were not old enough to get land in the land reallocations, have no future in farming. With this intention, this paper tries to examine the poverty situations and livelihood strategies of rural landless in Mecha district. Thus, for this study, qualitative and quantitative information’s are used from primary and secondary sources, in which 118 sample rural landless households that are selected from two Kebeles of Mecha district using simple random sampling method are interviewed. Based on the assessment result of this study, it is found that the major livelihood activities of the rural landless households are farming/crop production, livestock rearing, and paid agricultural jobs, small businesses, sale of fire woods/charcoal, casual works, service provision and beekeeping. The rural landless are spending a significant proportion of their income to rent in agricultural land, food purchase, health care and input cost. Also, the majority of the rural landless households face food shortage for about four consecutive months in year where adults eat less than two times a day, and children less than three times a day. The study identified that absence of adequate agricultural land, inappropriate land management practices, poor quality of land, pests & insects, and lack of improved agricultural inputs like fertilizers and improved seeds are a major causes of food shortages. These target households face numerous undesirable consequences; however, poverty, exploitation, insecurity, and migration are the major. As a coping strategies and food stress response the rural landless are usually used reducing the quality of meals, eating less preferred foods, reducing the number of meals, reduce the amount of food eaten by adults so that children can eat, and borrowing grain or cash to buy food from friends/neighbors or relatives. On the other hand, the provisions of financial services, trainings, extension and supports for the rural landless are too inadequate to create employment opportunity. In general, based on this research finding, it is found that the segment of the population in Mecha district is found in extreme poverty situation, and the root causes of poverty is lack of agricultural land, absence of skill training schemes, and limited provision of services (credit, input and training). Finally, this paper recommends that, since agricultural land becomes scarce and unable to absorb the new entrants to the farming, the government, nongovernmental organizations, and other concerned stakeholders shall work on promoting off farm & nonfarm activities; facilitating credit, skill training, and extension services; promote rural enterprises; design specific target group development programs; promote saving led literacy; support community skill training so that to create sustainable livelihood opportunities for the rural landless.