Land use change and determinants of land management: Experience of pastoral and agro-pastoral herders in eastern Ethiopia

• Use of communal land and keeping relative's herd negatively affects dual property rights.
• Collective action does not favour investment in land management.
• It is easier to manage communal than private land.
• Limited technology, know-how and unreliable extension services constrain land management.
• Crop-livestock integration and market development favour investment.

This paper aims at identifying driving forces behind land use change and the determinants of investment in land management in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. Data were collected from 182 households through a household survey and focus group discussions. Starting with narratives, an econometric approach was used to identify the determinants. The result shows that frequent droughts repeatedly undermining herd rebuilding capacity, the transformation of rights to land, emphasis placed in crop-farming by the training and extension interventions, communal land loss, and expansion of communal enclosure have affected change in land use. Benefits from the use of crop stalk as feed source, grazing on communal land, keeping relative's herd and access to training services significantly affect preference for dual form of property rights. Moreover, the econometric model predicts that having large number of plots encourages investment in land management, dependency ratio, sharing of land with neighbours, extensive land use behaviour, and participation in rotating labour undermine such an investment. This suggests the need to restore the role of customary authorities and social networks in land management. Moreover, the effect of state interventions in providing training, improved seeds and land management technologies will be unsustainable without considering the role of customary authorities.