Survival strategies and coping mechanisms of peasants to famine: The case of Tigray, Ethiopia

The research is based on a case study of farmers from Tigray, northern Ethiopia. The data was collected in a field research conducted in 1992. The research shows that traditional peasants use various survival strategies to reduce the risk of total output failure due to drought. Agronomic practices such as fallowing, crop rotation and inter-cropping and seed diversification are some of the techniques used to maintain soil fertility and resist to the effects of drought. The process of adaptation also includes the resolution of agricultural input constraints such as plow oxen, seeds, labor and animal feed through a system of community exchange. Input constraints have become very important after the land reform that gave equal access to all members of the community.;The case study shows that the traditional strategy of adaptation of maximizing output is constrained due to population growth and environmental deterioration that has led to the cultivation of unproductive marginal lands and grazing lands. The absence of rules that differentiate between arable land and non-arable land has increased to the depletion of forest and pasture lands. The process of environmental deterioration has increased the vulnerability of the people to famine. It has led to the loss of fertile land, fuel wood and water for human and animal consumption.;The survival strategies to famine in Tigray were also undermined because of government policies. The programs of resettlement, villagization and other economic policies of the military government restricted the various survival options of peasants. On the other hand, the leadership role played by the TPLF and REST saved many lives during the 1984 famine and in the process of environmental rehabilitation afterwards. Thus, the role of leadership is an important factor in raising or undermining the survival strategies of the peasantry to famine.;In conclusion, periodic government or international response in the form of relief will not resolve the problem of famine in Ethiopia. Instead the expansion of irrigated peasant agriculture, environmental rehabilitation, access to inputs and services will raise agricultural productivity. Access of peasants to reliable non-agricultural income is also important. Moreover, the participation of peasants in the national decision making process will assure that central governments will respect the interest of the peasants in future agrarian policy design and implementation.;When agricultural output fail to satisfy the annual subsistence needs of the household, peasants respond in various ways such as the dissolution of assets, non-farm income, seasonal migration and remittance. The diversification of sources of income in addition to crop production are important peasant responses to food shortages. Distress migration of peasants is conducted only after the failure of all other coping mechanisms.