Famine and Survival Strategies Famine and Survival Strategies A Case Study from Northeast Ethiopia Dessalegn Rahmato Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala 199 1 (The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies) This book is published with support from The Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) ISBN 91-7106-314-5 O Dessalegn Rahmato and Nordiska Afrikainstitutet 1991 Typeset and printed in Sweden by Bohuslaningens Boktryckeri AB, Uddevalla 199 1 Contents Abbreviations 6 Glossary 7 Acknowledgements 9 Section I INTRODUCTION 1. Objectives of the Study 13 Community and the ethic of cooperation 18 2. Organization of the Study 35 Sources for the Study 36 Technical problems and usage 43 Section I1 FAMINE: HIDING BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS 3. Wollo and Ambassel: The Setting 47 4. The Economy of Wollo 57 5. The Peasant Mode of Production 69 Farming practices 76 The control of the micro-environment 81 Consumption, marketing and prices 87 6. Famine in Wollo 99 The death toll (1984-85) 107 Section 111 SURVIVAL: COMMUNITY AND COOPERATION 7. The Community in Distress 117 Crisis anticipation 118 Magic and divination 125 Crisis management 141 Exhaustion and dispersal 156 8. Survival Strategies 163 Austerity and reduced consumption 165 Divestment and asset disposal 171 Livestock flows during the famine 176 Normal and abnormal behaviour 182 9. Post Famine Recovery 193 Section IV BEYOND SURVIVAL 10. Neither Feast Nor Famine 21 1 Disaster designation and early warning 219 References 227 Information from Official Records 227 Primary Sources 227 Secondary Sources 230 Annexes 1. Rainfall Data, Haiq Station, Ambassel 1963-1984 2. Livestock Supply and Prices, Haiq Market 3. Grain Prices, Bistima Market, Ambassel 4. Recipients of Relief Aid in Wollo 1984 5. National and International Relief Agencies, Wollo 1984-85 iopia, 6. Emergency Food Aid to Ethiopia 1984 to 1986 MAPS 1. Wollo: Zones and Administrative Divisions 48 2. Ambassel: Livestock Flows During Famine 67 Abbreviations AACM Australian Agricultural Consulting and Management AMC Agricultural Marketing Corporation CS0 Central Statistical Office EC Ethiopian Calendar EHRS Ethiopian Highlands Reclamation Study EMS Ethiopian Meteorological Service ENI Ethiopian Nutrition Institute EPID Extension and Project Implementation Department (of the Ministry of Agriculture) ESP Ethiopian Serategnoch Party FAO Food and Agricultural Organization GC Gregorian Calendar Ha. Hectare (equals 2.47 acres) HASIDA Handicraft and Small-Scale Industries Development Agency ILCA International Livestock Centre for Africa (Addis Ababa) ILO International Labour Office (Organization) LMB Livestock and Meat Board (Ethiopia) MOA Ministry of Agriculture NEEPR Northeast Ethiopia Planning Region NEERNDRC Northeast Ethiopia Region Natural Disaster Relief Committee (Dessie, Wollo) NGO Non-Governmental Organization NRDC-CPSC The name of the Central Planning Agency PA Peasant Associa.tion RRC Relief and Rehabilitation Commission SCF Save the Children Fund (UK) WFP World Food Programme WPA Woreda Peasant Association Glossary Abbay Local name for the Blue Nile river. Awraja, Woreda The country has a three-tier administrative division. The lowest administrative unit is the woreda; several woredas make an awraja, and several awrajas make a province. Ensat (Enset) A long-maturing plant which provides the staple food of the population in south-central Ethiopia. Kebbelae, got see Chapter 1. Quintal A unit of measurement equal to 100 kg. Ten quintals equal one ton. Red Cross The Ethiopian Red Cross Society. Teff The staple food of the population of northern Ethiopia. Woreda see Awraja. Calendar There is a seven to eight year difference between the Ethiopian Calendar (EC) and the Gregorian Calendar (GC). We started our field work in Wollo in Tiqimt 1979 (EC), October 1986 (GC). Currency At the official rate of exchange, US961.00 equals 2.07 (Ethiopian) Birr (1986). Acknowledgements An earlier draft of this work was distributed in the form of a report, and there I expressed my thanks to all the NGOs which provided me financial and logistical support during the research. I wish to thank here the Social Science Research Council (New York) for its grant which enabled me to finalize the study and prepare the manuscript for publica- tion. My thanks also go to the many peasants, peasants leaders, and extension agents in Wollo who gave us a good deal of their time during our field-work. I have also greatly benefitted from the support and encouragement of friends and colleagues at the Institute of Develop- ment Research (Addis Ababa University), and at the African Studies Center (Boston University) where the final phase of the study was completed. Finally, I would like to thank the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies for their cooperation in publishing the manuscript. The views expressed are solely my own and do not reflect those of funding agencies or research institutions. Dessalegn Rahmato I INTRODUCTION 1. Objectives of the Study When we first visited the province of Wollo in northeast Ethiopia in October 1986 to start the field-work for this study, what we saw was not exactly what we had been led to expect. The countryside appeared verdant and full of life, the harvest on many peasant plots was in good condition, and the people, young and old, bore no visible marks of having recently endured a traumatic experience. And yet, only a year and half ago famine had swept through most of Wollo, and death, privation and disease had played havoc with rural society in the prov- ince. The people of Wollo bore the brunt of the 1984-1985 Ethiopian famine which may be considered the worst tragedy that rural Ethiopia has ever experienced. The scale of human suffering in the province was such that this alone would have been sufficient to place the country high on the list of the world's most distressed nations in those two fateful years. The casual visitor to Wollo in the last quarter of 1986, however, would hardly suspect that such a terrible disaster had ravaged the area only a short while ago. But the crisis was not really over, only its surface evidence had temporarily been covered up. The deep wounds inflicted by hunger and disease take a long time to heal, and we could see that the healing process had barely got under way. Paradoxically, and as the past experience of Wollo shows, it is in the years of recovery that the seeds of famine are actually sown. A severe food crisis immediately followed by an apparent recovery, itself succeeded by another full-scale crisis: such has been the modern history of rural Wollo. The tragedy of the past fuels the tragedy of the future, and the spectre of famine refuses to be exorcised. It is not that the farming population here (and in this study we are concerned with the sedentary agriculturalists-the pastoralists of lowland Wollo will have to be treated in a separate work) is unfamiliar with the fine arts of Famine and Survival Strategies crop husbandry, nor is it unwilling or unable to labour sufficiently hard. Indeed, we shall try to show later in this study that the indigenous agricultural science of the rural cultivators here-and the same is true of their counterparts in northeast Ethiopia-is fairly well-advanced, although it has not often been given the credit it deserves. The Wollo peasantry is diligent, frugal and highly skilled, and yet this same peasantry has been the victim of all the major famines that have occurred in the country in the last one hundred years. Wollo has suffered six serious famines since the beginning of this century. Since the 1950s famine has hit the northeast-in which we include Wollo and Tigrai provinces, and the eastern and northern portions of Gondar and Shoa provinces, respectively-almost once every ten years. In the period between 1975 and 1983 there were numerous localized food shortages in one part of Wollo or another, and since 1979 "normal" harvest years and years of death have followed each other in close succession. In brief, Wollo may be described as a land of hunger and privation. The most recent famine that struck Wollo and the northeast did not start in 1984, it was only discovered by the international media in that year. Documents from the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) show clearly enough that famine was building up force and momentum all through the latter half of the 1970s. In 1980, only two of the twelve awrajas of the province-Borena and Wore-Illu in the south- west-were relatively free of food shortages, and by the end of 1982 RRC was reporting that over one million peasants in the province, i.e. about one-third of the rural population, were facing starvation. In December 1984, the same agency reported that more than 75 per cent of the Wollo peasantry were unable to feed themselves and in danger of imminent death. Of the 7.7 million rural Ethiopians said to be seriously suffering from starvation in 1984, 2.6 million, or more than one-third, were Wollo peasants. Famine has returned to the northeast after an absence of less than two years. As of December 1987, over two million peasants in Tigrai and Wollo were said to be in distress and in need of emergency assistance. In the early part of the year, the northeast and Eritrea were threatened by a serious locust invasion, said to be the worst outbreak since 1958, and while the threat soon passed without much damage it heightened peas- ant insecurity. The outlook for 1988, according to RRC, was quite gloomy: more than 5.2 million peasants in the country were expected to Objectives of the Study starve if relief supplies- did not reach them in time. The worst affected areas were Eritrea, Tigrai and northern Wollo, but peasants in North Shoa, northeastern Gondar, and parts of Harrarghe provinces were also suffering from drought and food shortages.