Farmers Willingness to Participate In Voluntary Land Consolidation in Gozamin District, Ethiopia

Abstract

In many African countries and especially in the highlands of Ethiopia—the investigation site of this paper—agricultural land is highly fragmented. Small and scattered parcels impede a necessary increase in agricultural efficiency. Land consolidation is a proper tool to solve inefficiencies in agricultural production, as it enables consolidating plots based on the consent of landholders. Its major benefits are that individual farms get larger, more compact, contiguous parcels, resulting in lower cultivation efforts. This paper investigates the determinants influencing the willingness of landholder farmers to participate in voluntary land consolidation processes. The study was conducted in Gozamin District, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The study was mainly based on survey data collected from 343 randomly selected landholder farmers. In addition, structured interviews and focus group discussions with farmers were held. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively mainly by using a logistic regression model and qualitatively by using focus group discussions and expert panels. According to the results, landholder farmers are predominantly willing to participate in voluntary land consolidation (66.8%), while a substantive fraction of farmers express unease with voluntary land consolidation. The study highlighted the following four determinants to be significant in influencing the willingness of farmers for voluntary land consolidation: (1) the exchange should preferably happen with parcels of neighbors, (2) land consolidation should lead to better arranged parcels, (3) nearness of plots to the farmstead, and (4) an expected improvement in productivity. Interestingly, the majority of farmers believes that land consolidation could reduce land use conflicts. The study provides evidence that policymakers should consider these socio-economic, legal, cultural, infrastructural, and land-related factors when designing and implementing voluntary land consolidation policies and programs.

Diversity of farmland management practices (FMP) and their nexus to environment: A review

“…This may give rise to extension strategies, but also to internal restructuring strategies that vary from one farm to another (Melot 2014). For instance, to reduce the distances between the different plots, maintain crop rotation, or bring the plots closer to the farm's headquarters, farmers may exchange plots with other farmers when the environment is favorable (Gedefaw et al 2019). A similar example is the expansion of farm surfaces by acquiring adjacent plots and by leveling internal plot boundaries (Doré et al 2006).…”

“…Some examples will serve to illustrate. Ethiopian farmers (Gedefaw et al 2019) and French farmers in mountainous regions (Mottet et al 2006) seek to own plots in both valleys and hills to take advantage of the ecological differences, to be able to allow for complementary production (e.g. crops and meadows for breeding).…”

“…Many researchers consider land consolidation as a tool for simplifying landscape management (Grammatikopoulou and Pouta 2013;Latruffe and Piet 2014;Luis OREA, et al, 2015;Nilsson 2019). It has been widely used in various contexts to reduce the fragmentation of land ownership (Luis OREA et al 2015 ;Strek 2018) and to foster land exchanges as a tool for farm restructuring, especially when a large number of willing owners participate (Teijeiro et al 2020;Gedefaw et al 2019). In Poland and France, public policies promoting land consolidation have been implemented to expand farms and address the problems often associated with land fragmentation (small, irregularly shaped, or dispersed plots) (Gedefaw et al 2019) and thus increase agricultural production (Latruffe and Piet 2014).…”

Food System and Water–Energy–Biodiversity Nexus in Nepal: A Review

“…Transformation of subsistence agriculture to commercial, large-scale farming requires land consolidation, which also reduces the risk of fragmented land being used for non-agriculture purpose [104]. Volunteer mechanisms for land consolidation can be nonconflicting measure [92] that, once implemented, will open an avenue for agriculture mechanization that is scale appropriate and socially and environmentally responsible [96]. Incentivizing in high-value agriculture production enabled with sound agro-advisory services and investing in marketing of products [93] can increase return from agriculture.…”

Effects of Land Certification for Rural Farm Households in Ethiopia: Evidence from Gozamin District, Ethiopia

“…Sedentary, rainfed, small-scale agriculture and livestock rearing are the major sources of livelihood within the Gozamin district. People primarily perform mixed cereal agriculture, with farmers growing teff, finger millet, sorghum, maize, barley, wheat, pulses, oil crops, vegetables and fruits [43,44]. Due to the high anthropogenic influence in the study area, native forests have been lost.…”