The Impacts Of Urban Built-up Area Expansion On The Livelihood Of Farm Households In The Peri-urban Areas Of Mekelle City The Capital Of Tigray Regional State

Although Ethiopia is under urbanized even by the African standard with 17% of its totalrnpopulation lives in an urban areas (i.e. above 83% of the total population of Ethiopia depend onrnagriculture) currently the urban expansion has adverse impacts on many farm households’rnlivelihood sources in the peri-urban areas. The basic problem is that urban growth causes notrnonly loss of agricultural farmlands but also displacement of farm households and challenged forrntheir livelihood sources in peri-urban territories. Such urban expansion affects more of the farmrncommunities in rural-urban fringe areas, especially in developing countries of agrarian economy,rnlike Ethiopia. On the other hand, there are legal rights/issues concerning the farmland holdingrnexpropriation and compensation. The federal constitution of Ethiopia under article 40(4 and 8)rnstates that, the farmers who hold farmland have the right not to be expropriated without justrncompensation for their farmlands. In addition to this, Article 44(2) states that; “All persons whornhave been displaced or whose livelihoods have been adversely affected as a result of staternprograms have the right to commensurate monetary or other alternative means of compensation,rnincluding relocation with enough state assistance.” However, many cities, including Mekelle; didrnnot implement these laws of land and other subordinate laws properly due to weak governance,rnlack of financial capacity and other problems. As a result, many farm households were displacedrnfrom their farmlands with little or no means of compensation and which are presently sufferingrnfrom food insecurity. Thus the study conducted to investigate ‘the major impacts of urban builtrnup area expansion on the livelihood of farm households in the peri-urban areas of Mekelle city,rncapital of Tigray regional state’. In addition the specific objectives are; identifying major impactsrnassess the implementation of the legal rights of farmers and their coping mechanisms. Thernresearcher was take a total of 140 (25%) sample size of farmers through systematic andrnpurposive sampling methods and 10 officials for interview and FGD. Data was collected throughrnquestionnaires, interviews and FGDs. Due to the urban expansion process 81.4 hectares ofrnfarmlands has been converted to urban land use from the selected 90 sample farm households inrnthe peri-urban areas. Out of these almost half of them 40 (45%) were displaced without legalrncompensation (but with small amount of subsidy only maximum of 3000 birr) and large amountrnof farmlands 39 hectare (48%) were expropriated without legal compensation. Thus, in thernindustrial site (Quiha and Adi-ha) the built up area expansion program resulted to loss of 54.1rn(from 79.5) hectare of farmland from 61 selected sample holds. The total land holding site leftrnonly 25.4 hectares. In the residential site (Aynalem), 29 selected sample households lost a totalrnof 27.3 (from 41.8) hectares of land and were left with 14.5 hectares. The federal and thernregional governments should review the laws which were adopted in relation to expropriation and update the packages and amount of compensation to be paid for the displaced farmers in turn with the best experiences of other countries and enfarce the municipality to implement the intended rules and regulations accordingly. Farmers should train and co-operate in order to create alternative sources of livelihood

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