Household Access to Farmland and Socio-Economic Status: The Case of Wonqa Kabale, Gozamin Warada (East Gojjam), Amhara Region
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Date
2003-06
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AAU
Abstract
This study deals with the changing role of access to farmland on household
socio-economic status overtime and regimes in Wonqa, East Gojjam, where land
was an index for socio-economic status in pre-1975. The research identified local
level dynamics in relation with household access to farmland and socio-economic
status since the 1975 Land Reform.
The study attempted to show the processes of land distributions, redistributions
and household heads' strategies to maximize their access in such processes
since 1975. Politico-economic status and kinship has been persistent means to
get access to more farmland. Inheritance, which was weakened as a major
means of access to land in the O{3rg period, has been re-instituted as a major
means of land access.
The role of capital and labour is also important to get access to farmland through
local agreements in which their values vary with the varying value of land over
time. Moreover, local agreements developed a market nature in which everybody
tried to maximize their share and the involvement of money has increased.
The research also analyzed the socio-economic implications of the 1975 Land
Reform and subsequent distributions on inter and intra-household relations, as
well as relations among the kinsmen and so on. Above all, the thesis argues that
political position has continued as a primary factor to get access to more
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farmland. Furthermore, land has continued as an important factor for household
livelihood and a major component together with capital for economic
stratification. However, land is no longer a symbol of social status. Thus, the
study shows continuity as well as change in the socio-economic status of the
farming households in relation to access to farmland across the time period
under discussion.