The Italian Background of Capitalist Farming in Ethiopia: The Case of Cotton

The Italian Background ofCapitalist Farming in Ethiopia: The Case ofCotton Haile M. Larebo Clemson University Although Ethiopia's environmental crisis and demographic collapse are as old as the country's known history, recently new elements such as sustained population growth, the power and needs of the everexpanding central state, and the demands of the international economic order have been added to make the situation worse. The territorial expansion of the imperial Ethiopian state that began in the mid-19th century was accompanied by financial and bureaucratic state controls and policies that made the task of surviving climatic extremes a steadily more difficult proposition for many of Ethiopia's farmers and pastoralists .1 We know little about the extent to which Ethiopia's postLiberation planning in agriculture was inspired by the Italian experience . The colonists had laid down a developmental infrastructure and initiated agricultural policies that had the effect of forcing Ethiopia into greater participation in the world economic system. When considered against the background of the country's pre-war under-development, the transformation by the Italians of the Ethiopian agriculture, particularly in areas totally controlled by the regime, was not insignificant. The most resilient feature of the Italian legacy derives from the fact that the rural population took no part in the decision-making process, with the government's agrarian dictates being imposed upon them from above. As a consequence, some of these policies were not only economically unsuccessful in mary respects but they were also resisted by the very people whom they intended to help. It is therefore important to examine the reasons for the implementation and failure of one particu-©Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 2, No. 1 (New Series) 1995, pp. 31-60 32 32 Haue M. Larebo larly important Italian government agricultural intervention, the development of cotton farming. Cotton farming is one of the agricultural initiatives that has its roots in the Italian period and played an important role in the post-Liberation history of Ethiopian agriculture. Attempts to develop an integrated "Roman world economy" led to the policy of dividing the Ethiopian Empire into sectors to be granted to Italian concessionaires who would have the right to buy and market certain items of Ethiopian produce. This scheme was planned to cover every aspect of the Empire's agricultural life. Owing to the abrupt and sudden end of the occupation, only the scheme for cotton production was implemented. Given its significance to the Italian metropolitan textile industry, cotton production was given great attention. Even though cotton was grown in Southern Italy, Eritrea and Somalia, colonial production was inconsequential. In Somaliland there were flourishing cotton plantations in the restricted regions watered by the Juba river along the banks of the Wabi Shibalé, where two crops, planted in April-June and again in September-October, were harvested annually. There was a government owned ginnery at Vittorio d'Africa, a few mües inland from Merca. But production was insufficient for the needs of Italian industry.2 Following international trade sanctions imposed by the League of Nations in 1935, the Italian policy of self-sufficiency led to a rapid increase in domestic production matched with a small rise in production in the colonies, as reflected in Table 1. Yet the cotton produced in Italy and the colonies amounted to just 5.5 percent of the total needs of the domestic industry. With the sharp decrease in supply (Table 2), the sanctions exposed Italy's vulnerability through dependence on foreign imports. It was estimated that Italy needed to cultivate a minimum of 900,000 ha of land, with an average production of 525 kg of raw cotton per ha to meet domestic needs. The Italians were confident that Ethiopia would produce, within a short term period, good quality cotton to supply the annual needs of the Italian mills.3 The crisis that followed the imposition of sanctions led to the Royal Decree of 7 October 1937, which created a government concern—The Italian African Cotton Company (ECAI), an affiliate of the Italian Cotton Institute (ICI),4 an association of all the Italian cotton industrialists responsible for coordination of cotton production. The agency had a The Italian Background...