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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
The fascinating events of the Ethiopian revolution have led to an explosion of papers, articles, and books.1 However, only a few studies published since 1974 are underpinned with original field work. Most are based largely on combinations of deductive logic and newspaper reports, discussions with foreign-service officers, interviews with political exiles and academic visitors, and close reading of officially released government documents. Such methodological approaches have a rational, factual content which should be approached with caution, for lack of access to data may lead to the reification of incorrect facts by subsequent authors who footnote the reports of others. Since there is increasing evidence that Ethiopia will be closed to field research for some time, and that academic involution will occur as scholars convince themselves of the validity of data reported by others, it seems useful for Ethiopianists to remind themselves how close they are to the early commentators on Lenin's Russia, or the China watchers of the 1950s,2 by considering only one of several cautionary tales about facts reported in the increasing number of articles on the Ethiopian revolution.3
page 685 note 1 For a description of much of this literature, see Cohen, John M., ‘Revolution and Publication: Ethiopia since 1974’, in African Studies Association Review of Books (Waltham, Mass.), 1980, pp. 154–64.Google Scholar
page 685 note 2 The Potemkin village phenomena are known to most academics, whereby sham successes were constructed to provide ‘positive facts’ for sympathetic western observers who visited Russia after the revolution. More linked to this note are the recent revelations on food production and poverty in China's famous Tachai commune. Maxwell, Cf. Neville, ‘Learning from Tachai’, in World Development (Oxford), III, 7/8, 1975, pp. 473–95,Google Scholar and ‘Up the Farm: rural poverty is a problem’, in Time Magazine (New York), II 08 1980, p. 17.Google Scholar
page 685 note 3 Cautionary tales could be told, for example, about the number and operational effectiveness of peasant associations, and the success of cooperative and state farms; the impact of the revolution on private enterprise, the amount of land redistributed, and the output of former commercial plantations converted to food-grain production; and the repercussions of price policies on the supply and demand of marketed food grains.
page 686 note 1 Koehn, Peter, ‘Ethiopia: famine, food production, and changes in the legal order’, in African Studies Review (East Lansing), XXII, I, 1979, pp. 51–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 686 note 2 Ibid. p. 61.
page 686 note 3 Ibid.
page 686 note 4 Ibid. p. 63.
page 686 note 5 The complexities of this issue are well illustrated by Clark, Ronald James, ‘Land Reform and Peasant Participation in the Highlands of Bolivia’, in Land Economics (Madison), 1968, pp. 153–72.Google Scholar
page 687 note 1 Holmberg, Johan, Grain Marketing and Land Reform in Ethiopia: an analysis of the marketing and pricing of food grains in 1976 after the land reform (Uppsala, 1972), Scandinavian Institute of African. Studies, Research Report No. 41, p. 2.Google Scholar
page 687 note 2 Liebenthal, Robert, ‘Certain Development Issues in Ethiopia and their Relationship to Rural/Urban Balance: a perspective based on World Bank experience’, 18th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Boston, 1976, p. 6.Google Scholar
page 687 note 3 Gilkes, Patrick, ‘Ethiopia: more decentralization as land reform progresses’, in African Development (London), X, 7, 1976, p. 664.Google Scholar
page 687 note 4 Personal communication based on: Hoben, Allan, ‘Social Soundness Analysis of Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia’, Study Prepared for United States Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C., 1976.Google Scholar
page 687 note 5 Darnton, John, ‘Despite Upheaval in Ethiopia, Its Economy Has Survived’, in New York Times, 7 03 1977, p. 3.Google Scholar
page 687 note 6 Koehn, loc. cit. p. 67, fn. 44. Actually crop-sampling data show the reverse, namely that yields increased while crop hecterage decreased.
page 687 note 7 The sources for this conclusion are as follows: Statistics Section, Planning and Programming Department, Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Sample Survey, 1974/75 (1967 E.C.), 2 vols. (Addis Ababa, 07 1975)Google Scholar, and Crop Production Survey, 1975/76 (1968 E.C.) (Addis Ababa, 04 1976);Google ScholarStatistics Section, Planning and Programming Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Settlement, Land Utiliztation and Crop Production: report on the small-scale agricultural sample census, 1976/ 77 (1969 E.C.), 4 vols. (Addis Ababa, 06 1977)Google Scholar, and Results of Agricultural Sample Survey, 1977/78 (1970 E.C.) (Addis Ababa, 08 1978).Google Scholar
page 688 note 1 The crop census data cited above show that 1975–6 yields were 15 per cent higher than those in 1974–5. Yields declined one per cent in 1976–7, another good rainfall year, and then fell by a further 54 per cent in 1977–8. A fascinating question dismissed with little evidence by Koehn is whether rainfall, rather than the new legal order and harder-working farmers, is the cause of the increased production.
page 688 note 2 Only a few countries follow Ethiopia's practice of statistically including cereals and pulses in the food-grain category.
page 688 note 3 The 1978–9 season is not so relevant here, because of this note's relationship to Koehn's period of analysis. Nevertheless, the production census for that season reports an increase in cereals of 2·5 per cent over the previous year, and a further drop of 9 per cent for pulses. Statistics Section, Planning and Programming Department, Ministry of Agriculture, Crop Production Survey, 1978/79 (1971 E.C.) (Addis Ababa, 06 1979), p. 18.Google Scholar It should be noted that the methodology of the census changed in this year.
page 688 note 4 Based on an average population growth-rate of 2·6 per cent per annum for 1970–5. World Bank, World Development Report, 1978 (Washington, D.C., 08 1978), p. 100.Google Scholar
page 688 note 5 Cohen, John M. and Koehn, Peter H., ‘Rural and Urban Land Reform in Ethiopia’, in African Law Studies (New York), 14, 1977, p. 24.Google Scholar
page 689 note 1 Sources: compiled from the Ethiopian Government/F.A.O. materials already cited. It should be noted that the 1975–6 and 1976–7 studies did not cover Eritrea, while Tigre was excluded for 1976–7 and 1977–8, and Hararge for 1977–8. However, the figures above include the calculations made by the Ministry of Agriculture for these areas, so that Table 1 incorporates, in effect, food-grain production in all 14 Provinces. The methodology for calculating production in the Provinces not sampled is laid out by the Ministry of Agriculture in Area, Production and Yield of Major Crops in 1974/75 (1967 E.C.)-1978/79 (1971 E.C.) (Addis Ababa, 1979).Google Scholar
page 689 note 2 The largest crop survey so far, in 1977–8, covered 4,151 rural households, or less than one per cent of the total. Estimates based on these data may, therefore, be subject to quite wide margins of error, especially in relation to totals and year-to-year changes.
page 689 note 3 Methodological problems and solutions are described in Vol. 1 of the June 1977 report, pp. ix–xiii, 52–64, and passim. It is probably correct to observe that every type of sampling error is possible in these studies, for those who directed them, particularly early on, had very little control over the enumerators.
page 690 note 1 Food and Agriculture Organisation, Programme for the 1980 World Census of Agriculture (Rome, 1975).Google Scholar
page 690 note 2 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ‘Economic Memorandum on Ethiopia, Report No. 2609a ET’, Washington, D.C., 22 April 1980, pp. 42–6.
page 691 note 1 Good examples of this new focus are: Ellis, Gene, ‘Land Tenancy Reform in Ethiopia: and retroactive analysis’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change (Chicago), XXIII, 3, 1980, pp. 523–45;Google ScholarFleming, Harold C., ‘Sociology, Ethnology and History in Ethiopia’ in International Journal of African Historical Studies, IX, 2, 1976, pp. 248–78;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Love, Robert S., ‘Economic Change in Pre-Revolutionary Ethiopia’ in African Affairs (London), LXXVIII, 312, 1979, pp. 339–55.Google Scholar
page 691 note 2 For a good example, see Stommes, Eileen and Sisaye, Seleshi, ‘The Administration of Agricultural Development Programmes: a look at the Ethiopian approach’, in Agricultural Administration (London), VI, 3, 1979, pp. 219–39; VI, 4, 1979, pp. 253–67; and VII, 1, 1980, pp. 1–23.Google Scholar
page 691 note 3 On the problem of analysing the shibboleths of Imperial Ethiopia, see Cohen, John M. and Sisaye, Seleshi, Research on Socioeconomic Development in Ethiopia: past problems and future issues in rural urban studies (Ithaca, 1977)Google Scholar, Cornell Rural Sociology Bulletin Series, No. 84.
