Dependence Level of Rural Landless Households on Allocated Communal Land: Evidences from Kilte Awlaelo and Atsbi Wenberta Districts, Tigrai Region Northern Ethiopia

The problem of landlessness has become one of the major challenges facing rural farmers in Tigrai region since the early 1990s. To address the problem, the regional government of Tigrai started to redistribute degraded communal land to landless farmers by ensuring their participation in soil and water conservation activities and willingness to engage in the programme. Thus, the specific objectives of this study are to examine the livelihood options and analyse their economic dependence level of the rural landless households on the apportioned degraded communal land. Data were collected from randomly selected landless households and analysed using descriptive and econometric techniques. Accordingly, the study identified plantation of timber trees, grass collection, engaging in animal fattening, fruit or vegetable production, beekeeping and poultry production were the major livelihood activities practised in the allocated degraded communal land. The study also indicated that the major factors influencing the dependence level of rural landless households on allocated communal land include gender of household head, marital status of household head, distance to farmers’ training centre, livestock holding, land ownership, experience in the programme, communal land ownership type, financial support and per capita expenditure of the households. Therefore, the study concluded that even if the regional government tried to solve the problem of landlessness through hillside distribution programme, it could not sufficiently support the livelihood of the landless rural households in the study districts.