Assessing the Impact of Addis Ababa’s Successive Urban Policies on Farmland Loss, Food Insecurity and Economic Inequalities Using Earth Observation Data (1986–2022) (Yilak Kebede and Andreas Rienow)

Rapid urbanization in Africa and Asia is responsible for 80% of all global cropland losses caused by urban expansion. The lack of data has made it difficult to estimate the impact of successive land policies on arable land loss. In this chapter, Landsat satellite imagery was used to examine the mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of 75 visually selected peri-urban farmlands between 1986 and 2022. The mean NDVI of farmland changed significantly after 2005 as economic development policies forced the government to intervene in large-scale projects such as affordable housing. Based on the estimate by Trends.Earth, a free, open-source tool, grassland and cropland area decreased by 46% and 35%, respectively, while built-up areas grew by 297%. Between 2005 and 2015, land consumption rates (0.92%) exceeded population growth rates (0.035%), suggesting that the city has been expanding horizontally into peri-urban farmland. Increasing household land fragmentation and rising property values are exacerbating farmland loss, leading to food insecurity and a dependency on imports such as dairy derivatives. The loss of agricultural land also affects farmers who have no skills other than farming, are economically insecure, and are unemployed. These findings provide policymakers with additional insights into the ways in which urban agriculture can be incorporated into local, regional, and national urban development plans.