Policy Brief of Common Grazing Land Management in the Northern Highland Ethiopia: Review

Abstract

Ethiopia is the highest with livestock population in Africa and its growth is increasing with population growth. Small holder farmers’ livelihood and the country national income is depending on livestock and crop production. In the livestock sector, free grazing is the major feeding livestock system and communal grazing land is the main feeding source. Poor communal grazing land management leads overgrazing of communal grazing land followed by environmental degradation in particular soil erosion. The government realized the problems but the policy effectiveness on communal grazing land is not reviewed well. This paper aimed to review common grazing land management and the policy and its effectiveness in the northern highland of Ethiopia. The livestock population is increasing dramatically so that it is becoming high threat for common grazing land. Livestock policy was adopted in Ethiopia but the implementation is weak due to low enforcement mechanism for common grazing management. To overcome the common grazing land management problem in the near time, disincentive policies like tax per head, need to encourage private investment, increase livestock productivity and need to adopt optimum allocation livestock stock rate.