The Impacts of Urban Built-Up Area Expansion on the Livelihood of Farm Households, in the Peri-Urban Areas of Mekelle City: The Capital of Tigray Regional State
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2011-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Although Ethiopia is under urbanized even by the African standard with 17% of its total
population lives in an urban areas (i.e. above 83% of the total population of Ethiopia depend on
agriculture) currently the urban expansion has adverse impacts on many farm households’
livelihood sources in the peri-urban areas. The basic problem is that urban growth causes not
only loss of agricultural farmlands but also displacement of farm households and challenged for
their livelihood sources in peri-urban territories. Such urban expansion affects more of the farm
communities in rural-urban fringe areas, especially in developing countries of agrarian economy,
like Ethiopia. On the other hand, there are legal rights/issues concerning the farmland holding
expropriation and compensation. The federal constitution of Ethiopia under article 40(4 and 8)
states that, the farmers who hold farmland have the right not to be expropriated without just
compensation for their farmlands. In addition to this, Article 44(2) states that; “All persons who
have been displaced or whose livelihoods have been adversely affected as a result of state
programs have the right to commensurate monetary or other alternative means of compensation,
including relocation with enough state assistance.” However, many cities, including Mekelle; did
not implement these laws of land and other subordinate laws properly due to weak governance,
lack of financial capacity and other problems. As a result, many farm households were displaced
from their farmlands with little or no means of compensation and which are presently suffering
from food insecurity. Thus the study conducted to investigate ‘the major impacts of urban built
up area expansion on the livelihood of farm households in the peri-urban areas of Mekelle city,
capital of Tigray regional state’. In addition the specific objectives are; identifying major impacts
assess the implementation of the legal rights of farmers and their coping mechanisms. The
researcher was take a total of 140 (25%) sample size of farmers through systematic and
purposive sampling methods and 10 officials for interview and FGD. Data was collected through
questionnaires, interviews and FGDs. Due to the urban expansion process 81.4 hectares of
farmlands has been converted to urban land use from the selected 90 sample farm households in
the peri-urban areas. Out of these almost half of them 40 (45%) were displaced without legal
compensation (but with small amount of subsidy only maximum of 3000 birr) and large amount
of farmlands 39 hectare (48%) were expropriated without legal compensation. Thus, in the
industrial site (Quiha and Adi-ha) the built up area expansion program resulted to loss of 54.1
(from 79.5) hectare of farmland from 61 selected sample holds. The total land holding site left
only 25.4 hectares. In the residential site (Aynalem), 29 selected sample households lost a total
of 27.3 (from 41.8) hectares of land and were left with 14.5 hectares. The federal and the
regional governments should review the laws which were adopted in relation to expropriation and update the packages and amount of compensation to be paid for the displaced farmers in turn with the best experiences of other countries and enfarce the municipality to implement the intended rules and regulations accordingly. Farmers should train and co-operate in order to create alternative sources of livelihood
Description
Keywords
Geography and Environmental Studies