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5 “The Government is always telling Us What to Think” Narratives of Food Aid Dependence in Rural Ethiopia in 2007 a large government billboard on a road in amhara Region, Ethiopia, warily cautions rural residents about the harms of depending on food relief and developing a “dependency attitude.” This same message is communicated at a workshop during the same year in the regional town of dessie, south Wollo Zone, where government officials warn farmers about depending too much on food relief and not working hard enough on their farms: “That is the problem with south Wollo; farmers have received food aid for too long” (field notes, January 2007). similar attitudes about farmers who are said to be “developing a dangerous dependency attitude” are expressed by officials throughout food-insecure regions of Ethiopia (government official, cited in sharp et al. 2006: 48). indeed, even among many members of the international donor community, a dependency syndrome among farmers is proclaimed with convincing authority but with little empirical data.1 The food aid industry in Ethiopia and the discourses and practices that surround it are fertile grounds for examining several of the book’s key themes, including the contradiction between the benefits of pro-poor economic reforms and the reality of growing numbers of poor and hungry (ferguson 2007). Ethiopia is governed by a coalition party, the Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary democratic front (EPRdf), which was formed from different regional resistance movements afer the successful overthrow of the harsh, militaristic derg regime in 1991. since that time, the government has held four rounds of ofen disputed multiparty elections, the most recent in 2010, and implemented economic reforms that dismantled state farms and cooperatives and liberalized markets but lef land and some principal industries under state ownership. it also established robust ties with key Western countries, especially the United states and the UK, and with key development organizations, such as the imf and World Bank, that have resulted in massive flows of external development assistance to the country (for example, see World Bank 2006). in 2008 it received more than Us$3.3 billion in official development assistance (foreign aid), which makes it the largest recipient of foreign 116 “The Government Is . . . Telling Us What to Think” | 117 aid in africa and the second largest in the world afer afghanistan (Global Humanitarian assistance 2011). The country now is in pursuit of food self-sufficiency in basic cereals, increased agricultural exports, and accelerated rural development built on a massive mobilization program (“campaign”) around the themes of economic growth and reduced dependency on food relief (Ethiopia 2005 and 2009). most of these initiatives emphasize individual accountability, hard work, and responsibility, all key elements of the neoliberal reform agenda, while blaming dependency attitudes among farmers and herders for hunger and underdevelopment . despite pro-market reforms and massive amounts of technical assistance and external funds since the early 1990s, Ethiopia still remains the largest recipient of food aid in africa and among the largest recipients in the world (Barrett and maxwell 2005).2 for instance, two recent droughts (1999–2000 and 2002–2003) alone resulted in imported food relief of more than Us$500 million of food aid, and in some regions of the country more than 75 percent of the population received assistance during these emergencies (see fao/WfP 2002; Usaid 2003; Ethiopian network on food security 2002). The state and its officials have put much of the blame on farmers’ inabilities to overcome a dependency syndrome and pursue productive agricultural and resource management practices. That the country remains so food insecure and highly reliant on massive externally funded food aid programs represents a paradox for a country that boasts of improved macroeconomic performance, but is confronted with the need for massive public food safety net programs to keep millions of its citizens alive (see World Bank 2006; Brown and teshome 2007). This chapter explores the ways that dependency narratives and food security policies allow the Ethiopian state to remain in firm control of its rural populations , a tactic that has marked Ethiopia’s political history since its imperial Period (pre-1974). it does so while boasting of pro-growth reforms and free markets and a hospitable environment for large-scale foreign investment, especially by agribusiness firms. in 2008 government policy encouraged foreign investment in agriculture by loudly noting that the country had about 2.4 million hectares available for development by foreign investors, and already several private agricultural schemes of 5,000 hectares or more have...

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