From Intensification to Sustainability? Political Leadership and Agricultural Transformation in Ethiopia

Ethiopia achieved a remarkable episode of agricultural intensification from the mid-1990s to the late 2010s, yet the political mechanisms that enabled this transformation—and the distributional and environmental consequences that followed—remain insufficiently understood. This article examines how political leadership, understood in institutional rather than personalistic terms, shaped both the drivers of large-scale intensification and the inclusiveness and sustainability of its outcomes. Using a five-dimension analytical framework of vision, commitment, timeframe, inclusion, and sustainability, and an analytical narrative approach, the study shows that the political leadership played a decisive role in enabling the agricultural intensification. It did so by articulating an agriculture-first reform vision, demonstrating commitment to sectoral investment, and maintaining a long policy horizon. However, uneven inclusion and limited progress in sustainable land and water management pose risks to long-term outcomes. The Ethiopian case illustrates that capable, long-horizon leadership can mobilize the public apparatus to produce substantial agricultural gains, but that enduring transformation requires deliberate policies for broad-based inclusion and environmental sustainability.