Das Projekt "Landentwertung, Verarmung und Ueberlebensstrategien laendlicher aethiopischer Haushalte. Wahrnehmung durch die Bauern und politische Implikationen" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Berlin (Humboldt-Univ.), Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institut für Agrar- und Gartenbauwissenschaften - Ressourcenökonomie durchgeführt. Objectives: 1. Generate some stylised facts on the behaviour of smallholder farmers and provide answer(s) to questions such as what are the economic responses (survival strategies) of small farmers as land gets degraded from time to time? 2. Closer examination of the causes and extents of land degradation and degree (dimension) of impoverishment from the farmers perspective. 3. Provide an overall evaluation of the macro policies, activities of governmental, and NGOs towards resource conservation, disaster prevention and preparedness strategy and formulate major policy issues that emerge from the findings. 4. Scrutinizing the efficiency of recently adopted Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) and liberal economic policies towards improving the ability of the country to produce food crops in surplus growing regions at the lower opportunity cost of the domestic inputs employed than obtaining it by import or food aid.