Poverty, peasantry and agriculture in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, people have been dominantly agrarian society with subsistence way of living. They have mainly made their livelihood by tilling and herding. Mixed agriculture has been dominant economic activity. Food production has been the most important activity of the peasants. Agriculture has remained more or less static for centuries and people have been indifferent to material wealth. Little has been done to transform peasant agriculture of the country. The failure and static nature of the Ethiopian peasant agriculture could be associated with interlinked historical, natural, religious and cultural factors. Though important it was, in the Ethiopian academics, peasant agriculture has never been recognized as an important development issue until the recent times. No attempt has been made to bring internal transformation in the thinking and working habit of the people. This contribution, based on desk reviews and unpublished sources, is concerned with the issues and history of essential features of the Ethiopian agriculture, including post-1974 rural policy and agricultural developments. The study also explored the effect of religion and culture on thinking and working habit of the people.