Assessing the Impacts of Expropriation and Compensation on Livelihood of Farmers: The Case of Peri-Urban Debre Markos, Ethiopia

Abstract

In Ethiopia, expropriation and compensation measures have become a great concern due to horizontal urban expansion and development induced projects. Especially in peri-urban areas, the livelihood of farmers is affected by expropriation without fair and comparable compensation. This paper investigates the impacts of expropriation and compensation activities on livelihood of peri-urban smallholders taking Debre Markos Town as a case study area. Mixed research methods were employed. Quantitative data were gathered using a structured questionnaire and by interviewing about 100 smallholders. Qualitative data were collected in focus group discussions and by analyzing legal documents. The analysis showed a high trend of expropriation without fair and appropriate compensation as result of ignoring legal procedures of expropriation and compensation. Expropriated farmers also complained that they did not get any support from the government to use compensation money properly for further investments. Due to incomparable compensation and lack of advice, peri-urban farmers faced multi-faceted problems, such as food insecurity and social and family disintegration. The government has to enable families of expropriated households to earn suitable livelihood, which could be achieved by fair compensation and appropriate guidance.

1. Introduction

Nowadays, land is in short supply due to the increased number of construction projects and the expansion of infrastructure. It becomes necessary to transfer a large amount of land for required project/investment operations [1]. In an agrarian country like Ethiopia, land is not only the primary source of income. It is also often used to accumulate wealth and pass it down through generations [2].

The world is experiencing a rapid rate of urbanization, with the current particularly rapid urban growth in developing countries [3]. Eastern Africa was the world’s least urbanized sub-region, but, currently, it is rapidly urbanizing [4]. Urbanization’s growing demand for urban land is largely met by transforming rural land on the outskirts of existing built-up areas [5]. Since the majority of people in developing countries live in highly concentrated peripheral areas, relying on agriculture with fragmented landholdings, displacement due to land expropriation is a more significant problem in developing countries than in developed countries [6].

Expropriation is the compulsory taking of land by the government for public purposes in advance payment of compensation [7]. It is a popular method of acquiring land for large-scale commercial farms in Africa, Asia and Latin America [8]. Between 1988 and 2008, a minimum of 300 million people around the world lost their land because of expropriation [9]. Many people around the world are losing their homes, livelihoods, health and even their lives because of expropriation [9,10,11].

It is documented that land expropriation has been shown to hasten urbanization and transform rural villages in developing countries [12]. In Ethiopia, urbanization and urban construction are old traditions, but the government and developmental agents have only recently adopted them as concepts [3]. In Ethiopia, rapid urbanization results in land expropriations, which often come at the expense of farmland and forests [13]. Moreover, land expropriations will likely increase in the future, as Ethiopia could be a rural-population-dominant country that needs more urbanization to achieve its policy objectives [5] Ethiopia’s high rate of land transformation in peri-urban areas is expected to continue [14]. Thus, expropriation is becoming a major concern in Ethiopia. It has an effect on the livelihoods of different segments of the population in various areas [11].

Ethiopia’s urbanization program is neither participatory nor supportive of farmers in the periphery, resulting in a negative impact on people’s livelihoods, especially those of expropriated landholders [15].

Horizontal urban expansion and development in Ethiopia is a complicated process, in which the vast majority of peri-urban farmers lose out while a few private investors and dwellers profit [15]. Expropriation of land and the upcoming large-scale land transfer to investors in Ethiopia have far-reaching negative consequences for rural communities’ livelihoods and the environment [16]. Development-induced displacement is becoming a major concern in Ethiopia, with different levels of concern in different parts of the region [17]. In most cases, municipalities in Ethiopia expropriate land to resolve issues such as housing, urban infrastructure, investment, and so on. Some Ethiopian municipalities engage in extensive land expropriation, well beyond what they need [6,18,19,20,21,22].

Farmland is taken from peri-urban households for horizontal urban development and infrastructure projects. Development projects in rural Kebeles (Kebele is Ethiopia’s lowest administrative body, similar to a municipality), surrounding Debre Markos city, also result in the displacement of many rural households from their farmland. At various times, laws and policies, governing expropriation, reimbursement and rehabilitative mechanisms for peri-urban farmers have been amended [15]. However, they did not solve properly the problems of peri-urban landholders in Ethiopia, in general, - and in Debre Markos town peri-urban areas in particular. Several studies [6,18,19,20,21] documented that many households living on the outskirts of Addis Ababa and other major cities in the country were forced to dispose their farmland. - The investigations of the studies looked into how urbanization affected the environment and attempted to assess land rights. Despite the complexity of the problem, there are a few studies in Ethiopia that have examined the practice of land expropriation and compensation [5]. Therefore, the current study focuses on the legality of expropriation and the impacts of livelihood strategies of expropriated peri-urban landholders. The general objective of the current study was to assess the impacts of expropriation and compensation on the livelihood of expropriated peri-urban farmers. The specific objectives of the study are to assess the legality of expropriation and compensation procedures, to examine the impacts of expropriation and compensation on the livelihood of the expropriated farmers, and to evaluate the livelihood strategies employed by the expropriated farmers.

To achieve these objectives, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from primary and secondary data sources. The main primary data was obtained from interviews of 100 respondents. In addition, qualitative data were collected from focus group discussion, legal documents and key informant interviews.

The paper will entice expropriated landholders to use the compensation wisely and to look for proper livelihood strategies besides agriculture. It is also essential for land administration officers to follow the procedures of expropriation in accordance with proclamations, regulations and directives of compensation. From a policy perspective, the article highlights the needs to follow up and evaluate the practical implementations of different land related policies, proclamations, regulations and directives, and to give due attention to the livelihood strategies, land tenure security and food security of peri-urban landholders in formulating national policies.

Section 2 identifies the principles of expropriation and the impacts of expropriation on the livelihoods of expropriated landholders in a national and international context. Section 3 gives evidence about data sources, the collection of quantitative and qualitative methods and about the analysis of the acquired data. The results of the study are documented in Section 4 and discussed in Section 5. Conclusions of findings, recommendations and future research work on this topic are highlighted in the final chapter.

Expropriation in a National and International Context

Expropriation, also known as compulsory acquisition, eminent domain, compulsory purchase or compulsory land acquisition in different legal systems and countries is characterized as the government’s compulsory taking of private property for public purposes without the property owner’s consent by giving an advance payment of fair compensation to the property owners [2]. The process of urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon that has been estimated since the beginning of the nineteenth century and is recorded in the history of all urban centers [23]. Rapid urbanization and economic growth have resulted in a high demand for land because of infrastructure and other different uses of constructions. As a result, many rural lands have been expropriated for non-agriculture purposes [24]. Expropriation is permissible, if the development project benefits the entire community and is therefore justified in the public interest. Under international law, expropriation is legal as long as certain requirements are met by the state [25]. Expropriation of farmlands due to urban sprawl is more common in developing countries, where agriculture employs a large portion of the population [26]. It is the most common method of transferring land from small-scale farmers to urban uses [8].

Compensation should cover the total social costs of relocation in order to rebuild a foundation for the farmer to seek a sustainable livelihood [27]. However, a study [28] found that many land-lost farmers are dissatisfied with local government compensation standards. Compensation and resettlement standards currently in place are insufficient to help displaced landowners and rebuild long-term sustainable livelihoods [27]. Following the compensation, there is no link between the government and the affected peri-urban farming communities [23]. Thus, there is no monitoring of what the farmers do with the compensation money. Many of them do not invest in value-added activities [2,15,26]. Many international studies documented unfair and inadequate monetary compensation [8,15,16,24,26,29], improper utilization of the compensation [22,26,27] and lack of skill and knowledge about the alternative business strategies of the peri-urban farmers are the main challenges elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, poor saving habits and poor technique of survival strategies are also the main challenges of the affected peri-urban farmers [15].

Expropriation and its effects have been the subject of several studies. Wang [27] report on the process of expropriation in China and its effects with an emphasis on the economic effect of having a rural hukou -y. According to Du [30], government expropriation has a positive effect on firm diversification in China. Germaschewsk [31] studied property rights and expropriation. According to this study, expropriation threatens social order, especially secure property rights [32]. In addition, Nikuze et al. [33] reported the expropriated landholder’s attitudinal changes in the context of land expropriation in China and land expropriation in tourism development. The attitude and skills of farmers have also affected the economic livelihood of peri-urban farmers and urban expansion. Peri-urban farmers’ attitude and skills are also only dependent on agriculture for their economic livelihood and survival [15]. Expropriation is closely linked to human rights, which are enacted at the constitutional level as the formal protection of private property [16,34,35,36].

Peri-urban farmers were expropriated from their homeland because of urban expansion to the outskirts [3,26]. Expropriation has a negative impact on the land-lost farmers’ health through income and psychological effects [28,37]. Several studies [2,27,28] revealed that expropriation has a detrimental impact on the health of expropriated landholders. In addition, it has caused community and family tensions, as well as increased instability among expropriated landholders’ families [38]. According to Guo et al. [24], expropriation schemes have resulted in drastic changes in rural households’ livelihoods in China. Expropriated farmers’ incomes declined because of land loss, and their long-term livelihoods are jeopardized [3,23,24,28,29,39]. Apparently, the loss of farmlands has multiple negative effects on the livelihoods of these farming households [40]. The study by Zhag and Qian [41] also explores the impacts of farmland expropriation on rural households in Vietnam. According to the report, the loss of farmland decreases farm production and household income from agriculture. According to Lin et al. [27], expropriated landholders’ income decreases after land has been taken away because non-agricultural jobs are difficult. Expropriated people may be profoundly impacted by the loss of their land on a mental, cultural or spiritual level [42]. Expropriation of land sometimes results in the loss of properties and livelihood of those affected expropriated landholders [3,16,24,26,43]. Furthermore, relative to urban residents, expropriated landholders in remote rural areas have unequal access to public services and social security [44]. Farmers who have lost their land are having a difficult time seeking jobs [45].

2. Research Methodology and Study Area

2.1. Description of the Study Area

Debre Markos is found in Amhara National Regional State at the distance of 300 km North-West of the national capital Addis Ababa and 265 km southeast of Bahir Dar, the capital of Amhara National Regional State (see Figure 1).

Debre Markos is situated 2400 m above sea level. The town has a 1380 mm average annual rainfall and a minimum and maximum temperature of 15 °C and 22 °C. Debre Markos town is one of the high land areas of the country. The town, which includes the rural kebeles in its environs, is home to about 262, 497 inhabitants. According to the municipality’s report, 97% of them are from the Amhara nation and the rest are from Agaw, Oromo, Tigre and other nations/nationalities. Most of the town’s residents are Orthodox Christians. The rests are Muslims and Protestants.

2.2. Type, Source, and Methods of Data Collection

In this study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The main primary data was obtained from respondents, including information on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the households. Qualitative data were collected from focus group discussion, legal documents and key informant interviews.

A standard structured questionnaire was used to collect data on sample respondents’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, assets, farm practices, and respondent’s perception of the legality of expropriation and compensation procedures, impacts of expropriation and compensation on livelihood, the impacts of livelihood strategies employed and activities performed using compensation money. The questionnaire was pretested and amended accordingly before beginning data collection.

Face to face, interviews with eleven key informants (three senior property valuation experts, two rural land administration committees, one property valuation team leader, two land law experts, Debre Markos Town municipality office head, two Debre Markos Town Investment office experts) were conducted.

The study undertook three Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with ten members from selected expropriated farmers, elders, kebele administration leaders, real property valuators, rural land administration committee members and development project agents. A checklist was prepared to support the collection of qualitative data during the FGD. This facilitated the assessment of detailed information and triangulating data from the household head survey. Secondary data were collected by reviewing published and unpublished documents of different organizations/offices.

The employed mixed research approach is very helpful to get both quantitative and qualitative data from respondents and informants at a glance. Mixing two approaches potentially minimizes the drawbacks of using a single research method and helps to take their complementarities. The quantitative approach generates quantifiable and numerical data from respondents that can be analyzed numerically. This is done by taking a sample from the study population and distributing questionnaires to the respondents. Therefore, the findings of the study are representative of the whole study area.

For this research, the sequential explanatory strategy was employed during data collection. A sequential explanatory strategy is a popular strategy for a mixed-methods design that often appeals to researchers with strong quantitative leanings [37]. The researchers collected quantitative data followed by qualitative data. The same sequence were applied for the data analysis. Qualitative data are based on the results of the initial quantitative analysis.

2.3. Sample Size Determination and Sampling Methods

The target groups of this study were peri-urban farmers, who lost land because of horizontal urban expansion and development projects in Debre Markos peri-urban kebeles. Heads of the households were the respondents representing the peri-urban farmers.

For the selection, in the first stage, the numbers of all farm households, who lost land due to horizontal urban expansion and development projects were identified and listed. Debre Markos city administration reported about 400 expropriated farmers—from 2014 to 2020. Since it is impossible to collect data from all expropriated household heads due to time and cost constraints, the number of sample household heads to be chosen for the questionnaire was determined by using the Finite Population formula [46].

For a confidence limit of 95%, a probability error of 5% and an estimated proportion of the population, the sample size required for the study was calculated as 103. The sample respondents were selected randomly out of the 400 expropriated smallholder farmers.

The Key informants’ interview and the FGD enabled us to get detailed information by interviewing key informants and discussing with people relevant to the topic. Using these two approaches also aided the researchers in triangulating and validating data from questionnaire and to check the reliability of the findings.

2.4. Methods of Data Analysis

Every questionnaire was coded, and researchers checked whether it was filled properly or not. Due to the incompleteness of data from three household heads, 100 samples were used for the final analysis. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze quantitative data by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 25 version). Mean values, standard deviations and percentages of the collected data were calculated for the final investigations.

3. Results

3.1. Size of Land before and after Expropriation

The survey result shows that the average size of landholding of the respondents has been substantially reduced from 2.01 hectares to 0.52 hectares. With a standard deviation of 0.938, the average size of expropriated land is found to be 1.48 hectares (

Table 1. Average landholding before and after expropriation.

	Amount of Land (in Hectares)
	Mean	Std. Deviation
Before Expropriation	2.01	1.066
Expropriated Land	1.48	0.938
After Expropriation	0.52	0.229

Source: Household survey, n = 100, 2020.

). After the expropriation, about 92% of the respondents have land less than one hectare.

3.2. The Legality of Expropriation and Compensation Procedures

The findings of this research gave evidence that households were not pre-informed about land expropriation and the opportunity of getting legal advice was unthinkable. Households in the study area were also not invited for public discussion before expropriation, rather the municipality (in some cases the Gozamin district administration) expropriated their farmland. Compensation was not paid in advance, which is against the prescribed legal right of the expropriated farmers. Data from discussants also highlighted that there are some farmers who did not receive compensation yet for their property expropriated in the years 2017 and early 2018.

Concerning the value compensation, just 6% of respondents said the value compensation was fair and commensurate, while the remaining 94% said the compensation was not fair and commensurate.

3.3. Utilization of Compensation Money

The key problem, as shown by the data gathered from the participants, is that the government simply takes their land under the slogan “land is for the government” and compensates them with cash. Nobody taught them what to do with the money or how to spend it. There was no follow-up from the concerned body. Figure 2 documents how smallholder farmers used the compensation money.

The results revealed that the majority of respondents, about 78%, used the compensation money for daily consumption. In this way, the expropriated farmers are facing serious challenges, as they have no options to sustain themselves after the money is depleted. This improper use of the expropriated money occurs because the municipality did not provide training regarding the use of money for alternative businesses.

About 15% of the farmers used the money for leasing agricultural land. However, farmers and discussants also reported about the challenges that farmland is too expensive to lease or too far from their home. Many of the property owners need to give their land for sharecropping instead. The rest of the farmers, about 7%, used the money for commercial business, like livestock trading, breeding and fattening.

3.4. The Problems Households Faced Due to Expropriation

Figure 3 below shows the major problems faced by the expropriated farmers in the study area. About 32 respondents faced food insecurity, 11 of them are challenged by social problems, 10 of them identified family disintegration problems and 39 of the respondents faced more than one problem caused by the expropriation of their land. Only eight of the respondents did not face any problems due to expropriation—rather, the expropriation of their land created opportunities to them.

3.5. The Impacts of Livelihood Strategies for the Expropriated Peri-Urban Farmers

Figure 4 shows the livelihood strategies that households pursue to achieve their livelihood outcomes. The majority of respondents (44%) named crop production as their livelihood strategy. Sharecropping was named by 31%. About 8% of the respondents’ livelihood strategy is livestock rearing. About 7% of households also pursue the fattening of animals as their livelihood strategy. Trading of livestock is the livelihood strategy for 6% of the respondents. Renting out of agricultural land and daily laborer in town covered 3% and 7% of the livelihood strategy of the respondents, respectively.

Data from discussants affirms the quantitative results about limited livelihood strategies in the study area. The predominant livelihood strategy in the locality is agriculture. According to the statements of the discussants in the key informant interviews and focus group discussion, the prime livelihood strategy is the cultivation of land; whereas animal husbandry is their supplementary livelihood strategy. Farmers were forced to rent other people’s land after losing their own due to expropriation. This, however, was not very successful. They mentioned that they are not acquainted with any other means of subsistence besides agriculture.

4. Discussion

4.1. Peri-Urban Land Use Transformation

As identified by this study and other similar studies in Ethiopia, the size of the peri- urban agricultural land is diminishing due to the current fast rate of horizontal urban expansion and development induced projects [14,19,21]. The main reason for this reduction of agricultural land is the transformation of the agricultural land to urban land use types through expropriation [18,40,47,48].

The global urban development growth trend indicates that spatial expansion of urban areas is very high, especially at the start of urban development. For instance, suburban sprawl was very high in Europe from 1945 until the mid-1980s, though the situation was curved to infill development in 1980s and 1990s [49]. This trend of spatial urban expansion is being observed in the current Ethiopian urban situation by transforming many hectares of per-urban agricultural land to urban land use types as depicted in the result of this study (each respondents lost on average 1.42 hectares of land). The current remaining farm landholding is very small for the household to sustain his/her family necessities for living. The fast rate of agricultural land use change in peri-urban areas of Ethiopia are also confirmed by other similar studies conducted in different regions of the country. For instance, for the Addis Ababa region, Feyera Abdissa [18] reported that horizontal urban growth resulted in the loss of an average of 2.55 hectares of agricultural farmland per household head with the remaining land area being less than one hectare. Another study done by Bekele [50] in Hawassa city unveiled that for 92% of households the average land size of the peri-urban community diminished by 1.58 hectares. Siltan [17] divulged that households lost an average of 0.57 hectares of land in the Dejen peri-urban area. Some other studies [51,52,53] indicate a decrease of agricultural land in peri-urban areas. In general the current scenario in Ethiopia indicates that development projects and the horizontal urban expansion is snatching the fertile land and arable land is being transformed to other land use types [2].

4.2. Expropriation and Compensation: The Law and the Practice

In the Ethiopian land administration system, some scholars have noted the pitfalls of clearly setting the expropriation procedures. However, even the available procedures of expropriation in the proclamation are not strictly followed and this is creating daunting problems, as noted in the result of this study.

In the Ethiopian legal system, the Civil Code of the 1960s established the first organized concept of expropriation. As described in Article 1460 of the Civil Code, Expropriation is a proceeding in which competent authorities compel an owner to surrender ownership of immovable property necessary for public purposes. Expropriation is also executed to obtain or extinguish usufruct, servitude, or other in rem rights on immovable property, or to terminate a lease contract related to an immovable owned by public authorities before the agreed term [54].

Article 40(8) of the FDRE constitution states that the government has the right to expropriate private property for public purposes if payment of compensation equal to the property’s value is paid in advance [55]. The constitution stresses that compensation must be paid in advance and that the amount must be proportional to the value of the property. Similarly, expropriation of landholdings for public purposes and payment of compensation proclamation [56] allows expropriation only for public purposes. This means that the use of land is specified as such by a decision of the appropriate body in combination with the urban structure plan or development plan in order to ensure the people’s interest in obtaining direct or indirect paybacks from the use of the land and to combine sustainable socioeconomic development.

In addition to the National Laws, the UN Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement require the following procedures during the expropriation [57]:

• Provide appropriate notice to all potentially impacted and expropriated persons before expropriating land;
• Provide ample time for public consultation or comment on the proposed plan;
• Provide opportunities for persons to seek legal counsel on their rights and options; and
• Hold meetings that allow affected persons and their supporters to challenge the evictions or provide alternative proposals.

The laws [54,55,56,57] also specifies compensation and payments in cash, in kind or both to an individual for property located on his or her expropriated landholding. They also state that landholdings for public purposes can only be expropriated using the specified procedures. Where a district or an urban administration intends to expropriate a landholding, they have to notify the landholder in writing, specifying the time the land must be vacated and the amount of compensation documented in the proclamation [56].

However, as documented by the findings of this study, the practice differs significantly from the written laws. According to Article 3(1) of Expropriation Proclamation [56], the first phase in the expropriation process is to decide if the proposed project serves a public purpose. Incorporating the public purpose into the expropriation framework should prevent the power of state organs from taking over the farmland from private holders [58]. Competent institutions permitted by law to expropriate private property must make the determination about the public purpose. The authorities will hold a public inquiry if necessary. The owner of the immovable and/or individuals, whose rights such as servitudes, usufructuary rights, mortgagee and/or lessee are recorded for the immovable to be expropriated, must receive expropriation orders issued by the authorities. Persons, whose property rights are threatened by expropriation, are required to notify the authorities of the amount of compensation sought for those rights.

Nevertheless, the data from the respondents and the discussants revealed that expropriated peri-urban farmers were not part of the discussion during the determination of the purpose of expropriation. The expropriated farmers raised critical questions about the purpose of the expropriation. They claimed that the expropriation is not based on the public purpose justification; rather it is simply due to the interest of the administrative organ. This finding can be interpreted as saying that expropriation cannot be undertaken solely for the benefit of the state’s commercial interests or those of a private person (such as the so called investors but practically the speculators). Public participation is very important to ensure that the expropriation of land is justified for public purpose [58,59,60]. However, this is not exercised in most developing countries. The rural people in developing countries are often far away from many important decision making processes during expropriations [24,61,62].

As per article 10(1) of Expropriation Proclamation [56], if the expropriated property is in a rural region, the compensation to be paid will be determined by a committee of up to five experts appointed by the administration. A party being unhappy with the amount of compensation decided by the committee may file a lawsuit with a tribunal formed for this purpose. If such a tribunal is not formed in the area of the expropriated land, a normal court may have jurisdiction. The tribunal or court must make a decision within a time limit specified by the region. If a party is dissatisfied with the tribunal’s or court’s decision, he or she can file an appeal with a normal appellate court within 30 days of the decision’s date. The appellate court’s ruling is final. However, the individual, whose land has been expropriated, has to prove the hand-over of the land to the district or city administration in order to appeal [56].

In the current study, the majority of respondents were dissatisfied by the amount of money they received as compensation for the expropriated farmland. They claimed that the administrative organ closed the door when they question the fairness of the valuation process. Also, as far as the determining of the amount of the compensation money, there was no public participation, even though the law of the nation provided this right for the expropriated farmers. The expropriated farmers were not pre-informed and were not ready to follow all the procedures to defend their rights [14].

They did not know their rights to land before expropriation. Legal advocacy has also been unthinkable for the expropriated farmers. Similar to this study, several researchers have highlighted major problems in the asset inventory and valuation process in Ethiopia, but also in other countries [7,43,63,64,65,66].

4.3. Use of Compensation Payment

As documented in the results section, the majority (75%) of the respondents use the compensation money for consumption. The rest of the compensation money is utilized for land lease and commercial business activities (Figure 2). This result provides evidence that smallholder farmers, after losing their agricultural land, are not able to develop production, businesses or apprenticeships to create a stable income to ensure livelihoods. Usually, the only professional competence of farmers is the cultivation of land. Therefore, some farmers tried to rent from or share cropland with others, investing the compensation money. Nevertheless, their activities are not profitable due to the costs of the rented and sharecropped land. Finally, the compensation money was depleted, and farmers were forced to cultivate only their own land that had not been expropriated.

Senior farmers often took their remuneration and put it into the household’s expenses. Other studies also confirmed that the expropriated farmers use the compensation money for shopping and daily consumption purposes. Agegnehu and Mansberger [14] discussed that farmers used much of the compensation money for regular expenses. Likewise, Nguyen [67] disclosed that 70% of the compensation money had been used for shopping purposes in Quang Ninh District, Quang Binh Province of Vietnam.

As there were no incentive programs for families, such as training or facilities, the expropriated farmers have no hint about how to use the payment received for the expropriated land. Other studies documented some promises to provide post-exportation training and services to dislocated households. According to the study of Ayele [11], farmers were offered training and organization in micro-level enterprises of various types immediately after displacement, which was suggested as a solution to joblessness. However, none of the promised pieces of training and social services were delivered after displacement, as stated by Agegnehu and Mansberger [14].

According to Feyera [18], the expropriated farming community’s social assets have changed as a result of urbanization, and dislocated households’ presence in social institutions has disappeared. Bekele [50] disclosed a decline in the social capital of the community after urban expansion, and Ayele [11] also reported a weakening of social capitals of the community due to the dispersion of families, relatives, neighbors and members of the social networks to a different location to search for a residential house during relocation. Similar results were achieved by a study of Teketel [20] on urban expansion and its effects on peripheral farming communities in Hosanna town in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR).

4.4. Problems Faced due to Expropriation

As described in the results section of this paper, the expropriated farmers faced the problems of food insecurity, social capital loss, family disintegration and the combination of either two or all of these problems (Figure 3). It is important to remember that land is just one of the development factors that affects food security in rural households [26,68,69]. Displacing peoples from their home, where their embryo has been buried, psychologically affects them because they lose the social capitals they formed [33,70].

Field research on expropriation in China documents that unemployment and low income are common among land-lost farmers, mainly due to their low educational level and their lack of experience in non-agricultural work. The studies give evidence that land expropriation led to the loss of subsistence, interruption of economic activities, psychological distress and land conflicts among farmers, whose land was expropriated [71]. People are affected emotionally, culturally or spiritually by the loss of their land [72].

4.5. Livelihood Strategies Alteration

Land is one of the most important determinants of establishing sustainable livelihood strategies [73]. The term livelihood strategies is used to indicate the range and combination of activities and choice that people undertake in order to achieve their livelihood objectives [74]. The Department of International Development [69,74] identified three livelihood strategies that could occur if farmland was taken away from households: agricultural intensification, livelihood diversification and migration. It may also be a combination of them. Agricultural intensification is the efficient use of small inputs such as land to produce a large amount of products and livelihood diversification is the process of constructing multiple types of activities to survive [17]. Migration, in other words, is the movement of people seeking opportunities to increase income for their household [76].

However, the findings of this study differ from the identifications by Department of International Development [70,75] because agricultural intensification is unthinkable. The majority of expropriated farmers still depend on traditional farming. Diversification and migration as livelihood strategies are confirmed (Figure 4). Traditional agriculture is still used by a significant number of households. Expropriated households did not alter their livelihood strategy significantly. Despite the loss of farmland, the majority of smallholder farmers in the study region remain heavily reliant on agriculture. They used to be, and still are, agrarian societies. Even those farmers encircled by the town due to horizontal urban expansion have been practicing traditional agriculture by going far from their home in search of farmland.

Deviating from the findings of the current study, a huge amount of publications on this subject document that households, who lost their homes and farmland, were forced to change their livelihood strategies [17]. According to Feyera [18], dislocated farming communities followed a range of subsistence strategies, including daily labor such as guarding, local alcohol processing, water vending and urban and peri-urban agriculture. The finding of this study differs not only from research activities undertaken in other parts of Ethiopia, but also from other countries. According to a study from Vietnam, household livelihoods have been reconstructed after land expropriation had been undertaken [67]. As a coping strategy, the households used a variety of livelihood strategies, according to Bekele [50]. Some farmers moved to rural areas to pursue small farming, while others, who were already wealthy and powerful, moved to urban areas to start their own urban businesses. The study made by Leulsegged Kasa et al. [6] reported that expropriated households engaged in different livelihood strategies after losing their farmland. They were involved in off-farm activities, like a daily laborer, guard, water vending and the like. The study conducted by Fetene et al. [5] and Alemineh [77] also found that loss of farmland causes farmers to change their livelihood strategies from agricultural farming practice to semi and non–agricultural strategies. However, the majority of the households still stayed at their residence on very small plots and engaged in different work like petty trading, daily labor and working as guardsmen.

It can be deduced that households in peri-urban areas that have had their farmland expropriated and dispossessed have changed their livelihood strategy. However, this study differs from previous studies in that expropriated households in the study area did not alter their subsistence strategies.

In countries like Ethiopia, where agriculture is the economy’s dominant sector which provides more than 80% of the population’s livelihood, a horizontal urban housing development strategy that changes productive cultivated land to housing construction results in an undeniable decline in the supply of food crops in the surrounding region in particular, and in the nation as a whole [2,78,79].

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

Currently, the expropriation of agricultural land to provide new land for industrial and urban expansion is prevalent in developing countries like Ethiopia. The conversion of agricultural land into land designated for urban land use types is common practice in peri-urban areas. The process has been facilitated by the power of government; farmland is acquired without the consent of the landholders. Cities in Ethiopia are spatially expanding at an alarming rate at the expense of peri-urban poor landholdings, to accommodate the building and infrastructure needs of the urban society. Even development-induced projects are given priority by regional and local governments as a consequence of the industry-led development strategy of the federal government of Ethiopia. Most industries need to gain land in the urban interface due to access to basic infrastructure and facilities like road, water, electric power supply and the like. Accordingly, there is high rate of land tenure transformation from rural to urban land use types and the situation is expected to continue for some time even into the future. In such situations, as observed in this study, there is urban development motivated expropriation perception by municipalities and rural land administration offices. This perception has to be changed immediately and the expropriation processes and compensation payments should be the primary concern of the affected farmers. As a mitigative measure of this, the revision of the current incomparable expropriation and compensation legislation is imperative, taking into account the escalating prices of land in the peri-urban areas. However, up to that time, strict follow-up of the available expropriation and compensation proclamation and monitoring and evaluating the legality of expropriation is essential to safeguard the rights of the peri-urban poor, at least to some extent. The public hearings and participation in the whole process of expropriation should be given attention, and thereby transparency and accountability must be achieved.

It has been said time and again that the goal of compensation should be to build a basis for the peri-urban farmers to pursue a sustainable and long-term livelihood income. It should also cover the total social costs of resettlement. However, when the amount of compensation payment given to the affected farmers is evaluated, it is not comparable with the value of the land expropriated. However, the basic challenge lays not only in its incomparability but also in that even the paid small amount of money is not properly used by the affected farmers. The money is expected to be used for business strategies in order to commensurate income lost due to expropriation, but what has been observed in this study and other similar studies is that farmers have used it for regular expenses. Even saving in banks is not economical at the current double rate of inflation in the country. Therefore, supporting farmers to use the money for alternative businesses is very essential and this has to be set even before the start of the expropriation. There must be clear policy, which enables the peri-urban farmers to adapt to the urban way of life and let them integrate into urban society before expropriation.

Therefore, the following key points are recommended, to be given priority by the government, to reduce the drawbacks of expropriation:

• The government needs to get ideas, start a discussion and reach consensus with the target groups about the compensation guidelines before their approval and execution.
• The capacity building and technical support to land loss farmers due to expropriation needs to be given priority by the concerned bodies to conserve food and nutritional security.
• The government needs to think about vertical urban housing development strategy to reverse the situation; this strategy has numerous advantages such as effective use of land, reduction of cots to fulfill infrastructural utilities, and avoiding reduction of yield due to land-use change especially in most productive areas.
• Finally, yet importantly, because of the proposed new economic policy which gives due emphasis to urban development, the compensation guidelines need to be correctly evaluated and revised to the mutual benefit of expropriated farmers and the government.

Expropriation is always a source of conflict. On one hand, the governments are challenged to provide land for housing, for infrastructure and for industrial development. On the other hand, the farmers have the land as their livelihood and they are emotionally attached to the places with which they associate many fond memories. Due to diverging interests, the conflicts cannot be solved, but the conflicts can be mitigated by enabling farmers an equivalent livelihood after expropriation. There are numerous ways to do it. First, giving them sufficient money is one of the possibilities. However, what is sufficient money? The amount will dependent on the people, the site and the possibilities to invest the money. Second, giving them land at another place. In this case, the site of provided land has to be accepted by the farmers and the size is dependent on the quality of the soil. Third, offering them employment in a public or private institution. In this case, the knowledge, skills and competences of the farmers in non-agricultural professional fields will limit the possibilities.

The three alternatives highlighted above have to be answered by carrying out further research. The alternatives seem to be short and simple, but to give the right answers requires the involvement of legal, technical, socio-economic as well as environmental disciplines. The challenge will be to consider individuality of legal frameworks, of institutional settings, attitudes of farmers, quality of soils, and the economic and social environment on the local, regional, national and international levels.