Leaf of Allah

Reviewed by: Leaf of Allah: Khat and Agricultural Transformation in Harerge Ethiopia, 1875-1991 Tim Carmichael Gebissa, Ezekiel . 2004. Leaf of Allah: Khat and Agricultural Transformation in Harerge Ethiopia, 1875-1991. Oxford: James Currey. 210 pp. $44.95 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). Thriving in climates well-suited to coffee cultivation, qat1 is a psychoactive shrub, grown and consumed primarily throughout eastern and northeastern Africa and southern Arabia. Users typically ingest it by chewing the soft, slightly bitter leaves, though sometimes they brew them like tea, or dry and crush them and mix the powder with cold water. Qat's two main alkaloids, cathinone and cathine, lessen hunger and produce enhanced wakefulness, greater physical energy, and focused concentration. As a major component of numerous cultures and economies in Africa and Yemen, the leaf has been studied by agricultural experts, anthropologists, botanists, chemists, economists, historians, medical doctors, psychologists, and others. Recently, qat surpassed coffee as Ethiopia's top export earner, yet public and private [End Page 134] debates rage about whether the economic benefits to farmers, traders, sellers, and government offset the stimulant's deleterious effects on chewers and their societies. Despite the past and present significance of qat in the Horn of Africa, Ezekiel Gebissa's monograph is the first on the topic in Ethiopian studies, and it makes a novel and welcome contribution to the historiography. An in-depth study of Ethiopia's eastern province, Hararge, it takes demographic, ecological, market, political, and other factors into consideration to provide solid analyses of agricultural, policy, and parallel economic (smuggling) issues. Most of it is well written and reveals far-ranging research, considerable thought, and meaningful theoretical engagement. While readers interested in issues of consumption will be disappointed, scholars of agriculture, political economy, and state–society relations will find much of interest between its covers. The book begins by linking the spread of increased Ethiopian qat consumption over the twentieth century to rises in disposable income and rapid transportation systems, and situates the book historiographically. Gebissa then describes the administration of Harerge and changes in land tenure there under Ethiopian rule (after 1887), and explicates the Djibouti–Addis Ababa railway's influence on cropping regimes and exports. Although qat is potentially lucrative, it is highly perishable and must be delivered soon after being harvested; therefore, notwithstanding higher shipping costs, the arrival of the railway in Dire Dawa, in 1902, made distant marketing more feasible. Still, the post-1941 period witnessed the most marked expansion of the cultivation of qat. To account for this development, Gebissa looks beyond the basic forces of supply and demand, and improved transportation networks, to investigate farm-level issues affecting cropping choices. By the 1940s, population growth, state and private acquisition of lands, and inheritance patterns had made land scarce. Farmers responded by "claiming land from the forests" (p. 66) and opted increasingly to plant qat in the cleared plots. Highly disease-resistant, the leaf promised long-term yields, meshed well with seasonal labor demands, did not necessarily disrupt food production for family consumption, and could be sold year-round, often for high profits, unlike coffee, whose prices began to drop in the 1950s. When asked in 1994 about the returns obtained from these cash crops, one respondent answered, "Oh! You are comparing a slave to a free man. . . . Coffee is slavery, khat is freedom" (p. 74). Gebissa then reviews internal factors that led to increased qat consumption in Yemen, Djibouti, Somaliland, and the Ogaden. Improved infrastructure and modern transport, including airplanes, permitted delivery of fresh leaves from Harerge to the chewers. Alarmed by the amount of currency this international trade diverted to Ethiopia, other governments endeavored to discourage it: in 1963, Aden succeeded in imposing a lasting ban; in 1964, Ethiopia countered Somalia's invasion by prohibiting cross-border transactions. The loss of these legal outlets spurred Hararge qat smuggling, whose appeal was strengthened by Ethiopia's punitive tax structures [End Page 135] and insufficient policing resources. The surplus resulting from closed foreign markets was partially absorbed by rising domestic consumption—an important phenomenon, but regrettably summarized in little more than one page. Gebissa subsequently discusses domestic marketing structures and the logic of farmers' decisions to

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  Tim Carmichael•Ufahamu A Journal of African…•2000

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