A registration for over 72,000 parcels of farmland in the Southern Regional State was completed recently, paving the way for the second-level land certification programme that first appeared in the regional state in 2010. Close to 21,000 smallholder farmers in 70 weredas have received landholding certificates in the region thus far. Officials at the Ministry hope to use the information to encourage investment in the agricultural sector.

The land certificates feature primary information about a plot of land – such as GIS coordinates, boundaries, type and use – as well as the landholders. At the national level, around 4.8 million farmers holding 25 million land parcels, with an average unit size of 0.28ht, have been certified in seven regional states since the programme was launched in 2007.

The programme is intended to enhance farm households’ perceptions and confidence in land tenure security, according to Eyasu Elias (Prof.), a state minister for Agriculture. The core objective is improving productivity by facilitating the flow of long-term investment into the agricultural sector, says the State Minister.

One of the registration and certification scheme beneficiaries is Tefera Shibeshi, a farmer in South Sodo Wereda in the Southern region who farms wheat on two hectares of land. Since 2018, Tefera has received credit from Omo Microfinance Institution on three separate occasions against the collateral of the landholding certificate. The latest of the loans came through last month when the financial institution approved 50,000 Br in credit.

“The loans helped me buy irrigation equipment," Tefera told Fortune. "My productivity has increased by more than half since I got access to credit."

Before the loans, Tefera harvested a maximum of 36qtl from his land.

Such a programme benefiting close to five million farmers across the four regional states is not the first of its kind in the country. In the six years beginning in 1997, Ethiopia implemented one of Africa's most extensive land certification programmes. Although 98pc of farm households in the Tigray, Oromia, Amhara and Southern regional states received certifications, this could not improve the tenure security of smallholder farmers and encourage long-term investments.

For a predominantly agrarian country like Ethiopia, the land is the major means of production and livelihood. The agricultural sector is the primary source of income for nearly 80pc of the population, while its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) stands at 35pc. Nineteen million agricultural households farm 22.8 million hectares of land, with an average holding size of 0.84ht. Close to 30pc of small-scale farmers possess less than a hectare of farmland.

The use of agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, improved seeds, and pesticides as well as technologies has remained insignificant, says Simieneh Bessie (PhD), partnership and communications director at the Ethiopian Economics Association (EEA).

“Although some improvement has been exhibited in agricultural productivity, the improvement was trivial compared with the rapid population growth,” he said.

Agricultural productivity has been growing at a snail's pace. Last year's mehir season saw 341.8 million quintals of crops harvested, which exhibited a 68pc increase compared to a decade ago when the certifications schemes began. However, the figure is barely three percent higher than what was harvested last year.

“The first programme helped create standardised land registration and certification systems,” says Abebaw Abebe, a property law expert at the Ministry of Agriculture, a federal agency overseeing the land registration and certifications programmes.