The study focuses on the pastoralist Afar in the Amibara and Gewane districts, in the MiddlernAwash Valley, northeastern Ethiopia. The Afar survives for centuries through practicing theirrntraditional production system and way of life that is friendly to the Socio-economic and ecologyrnof the area they inhabit. However, since the Imperial regime, the Middle Awash Valley werernincorporated in large scale commercial and state farms which refused to recognize the landrnrights of the Afar and have had severe impact on the Afar and their land. After the EPRDFrngovernment took power in 1991, some change has taken place in Awash. As per the strongrnquest of the Afar for the return of their land, the transitional government of Ethiopia hasrnreturned about 7000 hectares of irrigated and mechanized lands in the Middle Awash to therntraditional owners i.e., the Afar. However due to lack of attitudinal change among the Afarrnpastoralists toward farming practice in general and crop production in particular, shortage ofrnskilled manpower, inadequate financial capital and weak technical support from the federalrngovernment, both the Afar and the regional government could not maintain the farms.rnConsequently, the ANRS re-allocated the land among different clans in the Afar. And hence,rneach clan lease-out its territory to private cultivators through net profit sharecropping as wellrnas fixed-rental price. This study is stimulated by the current controversy that whether or notrnthe Afars become benefiCiary from the private agricultural investment undertaken on theirrnland. The findings of this study indicates that the private agricultural investment in the MiddlernAwash do not bring any socio-economic benefit to the Afar rather it make the Afarland to bernexploited for "free". The Afars' share from the income and employment opportunitiesrngenerated from operation of the private cultivators is insignificant. Besides the regionalrngovernment could not generate revenue from tax, as it should have been collected. ThernAfarland becomes degraded due to high toxic chemicals used by private cultivators as well asrntheir refusal to practice fallowing and crop rotation to conserve the productivity of the land forrnsome years. As a consequence, the Afars become dependent with others and th is time somernclan leaders and influential elders are intensively competing to expand their clan land territoryrninorder to lease-out more land to private cultivators and receive fa~ade benefit at the expensernof the majority of Afar pastoralists and their land. The study recommend5 that regionalrngovernment should design compatible land use policy with the objectives of attracting privaternagricultural investment on the Afar land as well as realizing the transformation of the Afarrnpastoralists into agro-pastoralists.rnKey words- Pastoral Land Tenure: Private Ag ricultural Investment: Development:rnAfar:Amibara: Gewane