In Tigray, the scars of war and increased fears of another conflict are visible everywhere. Yet, despite the tensions, farmers have to put politics to one side and focus on tending their land, writes Jan Nyssen.
Source: LSE
Tigray remains deeply marked by the 2020-2022 war between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the years of blockade that followed. Almost every family in the region has lost relatives. Economic life has been profoundly disrupted. Public services remain fragile. And many institutions now function only partially or intermittently.
Responsibility for the destruction, wartime atrocities, and economic collapse is widely attributed to the Ethiopian state and its allies, though political fragmentation within Tigray has become increasingly visible recently.
In Mekelle, the region’s capital, even members of the same family may express radically different political positions, reflecting growing tensions and fears of renewed conflict.
Public discussion is increasingly dominated by fears of renewed war. Statements attributed to political figures, including remarks by ousted regional president Getachew Reda referring to “a small surgical attack” against the current Tigray leadership, circulate widely through conversations and social media exchanges.
The unusually early closure of schools on 7 June, amid the region’s organisational and budgetary crisis, was similarly interpreted as a sign that renewed fighting might occur during the coming summer rainy season.
In rural areas, however, political divisions are often secondary to immediate livelihood concerns. Rural life continues to follow its own seasonal logic. The short spring belgi rains have been good; in the midlands, farmers have already sown sorghum and other early-season crops. Farmers prepare fields, trade oxen, seek fertiliser, spread manure, and discuss rainfall.
Agriculture cannot wait for politics
The contrast with Mekelle is stark. The city is subdued and unusually silent. Traffic is sparse and fuel shortages severe. Electric bajaj three-wheelers have largely replaced petrol-powered ones as fuel prices soar and supplies shift to black-market channels. Residents attribute the shortages to continued restrictions on trade and transport into Tigray. There were rumours that fuel was reaching Eritrea, but this was only small-scale smuggling: a few jerrycans hidden alongside other merchandise.
Cash shortages are becoming serious. Many banks no longer allow withdrawals, while rumours circulate that electronic banking services could be interrupted, as they were during the war.
In towns, conversations revolve around political rumours, military scenarios, and fears of escalation, and the atmosphere is sombre. In rural areas, however, anxiety is embedded within the practical routines of agricultural life. The mentality is captured by the old Dutch saying: “And the farmer, he ploughed on.”
Landscapes after war
Long-term observations in the Dogu’a Tembien district of Tigray reveal both environmental recovery and disruptions produced by war and societal crisis.
Some changes are encouraging. Exclosures established on degraded slopes now support dense vegetation growth. Areas barren in the late 1990s are now covered with indigenous trees, shrubs, bamboo, and irrigated gardens.
Improved vegetation cover has stabilised former erosion gullies, while roadside runoff now supports small “gallery forests” along asphalt roads away from villages. Community efforts to manually remove the invasive weed Salvia tiliifolia also appear to have been successful.
At the same time, institutional erosion is equally visible. In Gra Arho, a large check dam constructed with community participation around 2001 – and still intact in 2024 – has recently been deliberately dismantled. The metal pipe embedded in its centre has been removed, probably for resale, creating a gap widened by floodwaters.
“There is no government now,” one interlocutor remarks. “If you want to impose your objective by force, this is the moment.”
The war’s indirect effects appear everywhere. Waste collection in Hagere Selam largely ceased functioning after 2020, and gullies are increasingly filled with plastic waste. Eucalypt plantations that had survived for decades were heavily harvested during wartime as households struggled for survival.
Informal economic practices have proliferated. Traditional inda siwa (local beer houses), once licensed and taxed, were increasingly replaced during the war by improvised “pop-up inda siwa” hidden beneath trees or rock overhangs, where customers could gather discreetly and avoid Ethiopian soldiers, who had themselves become frequent visitors to formal establishments.
The practice has continued after the war as part of an increasingly informalised local economy.
Fertiliser, oxen, and the rural economy
Nowhere is the persistence of agricultural life more visible than at the Saturday market in Hagere Selam.
Large groups of farmers gather outside the cooperative office waiting to obtain fertiliser. One farmer complains that prices had reached 13,000 birr per quintal (approximately £60 per 100 kilos), extraordinarily high in the Ethiopian context. Farmers link these prices to post-war disruption, transport difficulties, fuel scarcity, and failures in the cooperative distribution system.
Yet the response is not passive. Across many fields, increased use of manure and night soil is evident. Donkeys transport organic fertiliser in small heaps to farmland. Compared to twenty years ago, manure is now spread systematically before ploughing, suggesting changing nutrient-management strategies under economic pressure.
The cattle market is extraordinarily busy and noisy. Hundreds of oxen, cows, and goats are traded before the onset of a fasting season and the heavy ploughing associated with the main rains. Before purchase, oxen are tested beside the market using a traditional mahrasha plough to verify their suitability for ploughing. Only after passing the test is the transaction concluded with a cup of siwa in one of the makeshift drinking houses surrounding the market.
Nearly all transactions occur in cash, even for large sums. This contrasts sharply to Tigray’s cities, where mobile banking dominates everyday commerce. In Tigray, memories of wartime banking suspensions remain vivid. Many still fear that electronic financial systems could again be interrupted if conflict resumes. The preference for cash reflects not backwardness, but accumulated distrust produced by years of war and blockade. When farmers purchase oxen, available cash is prioritised for that purpose, possibly leaving insufficient money later for seeds.
At the end of the market day, farmers walk back to their villages carrying cooking oil and other provisions purchased in town. Several people refer to stockpiling “because war may come.” Two young farmers hurry along the road carrying 50-kilogram fertiliser sacks, racing before darkness to load them onto donkeys for transport down steep mountain footpaths. Walking back after dusk is no longer considered safe because of robbers, while fuel costs have made paid transport increasingly unaffordable.
These scenes capture something fundamental about rural Tigray. The region remains haunted by war, economic collapse, and unresolved grievances. Discussions among politicians and activists increasingly revolve around competing narratives and accusations, while questions of accountability, reconstruction, return of displaced people, and compensation remain largely unresolved.
For most rural inhabitants, however, immediate concerns are practical: obtaining fertiliser, securing oxen, protecting fields, maintaining livelihoods, and preparing for another uncertain rainy season.
The landscape reflects this contradiction. Institutions weaken, infrastructure decays, and fears of renewed conflict persist. Yet the agricultural cycle continues regardless. Fields must still be ploughed before the main kremti rains begin.
And so, the Tigray farmer ploughs on.
About the author
Jan Nyssen
Jan Nyssen is a retired Professor of Geography at Ghent University (Belgium). His research has focused primarily on Ethiopia, especially Tigray, where he has conducted fieldwork since 1994 in collaboration with a large network of local scientists and research partners. His work centres on environmental change, rural livelihoods, landscape history, and land management in the Horn of Africa.
Martin Plaut 