Local dynamics and external drivers of agro-ecological change in Southwestern Ethiopia

Abstract: While previous research on African smallholder agriculture has been criticized of focusing on the sole factor of population pressure as driver of agricultural degradation or intensification, the present study tries to nuance this debate by providing empirically grounded research, exploring the dynamics behind local agro-ecological change. The thesis specifically studies the dynamics behind small-scale farmers’ crop choices in relation to their management of trees in cropland in Gera District, Ethiopia. Drawing on situated landscape interviews and focus group discussions with farmers combined with observations and interviews with agriculture officials, a contextual understanding of local agro-ecological processes emerged. While political ecology was used as an overarching framework, the concept of landesque capital served as an analytical tool to explore how external and local forces interact at the point of the land management decision. It was found that external factors sometimes have a reinforcing effect at the local scale, but when top-down interventions are incoherent with bottom-up priorities, a conflict occurs. In this way, local dynamics and external drivers constitute an interacting dialectic, with a set of unintentional synergies and trade-offs eventually forming agro-ecological landscape change.