ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the economic returns derived from devoting the Awash valley to pastoralism as opposed to irrigated cotton or sugar cultivation. The opportunity costs of excluding pastoralism from sections of the Awash valley are roughly comparable to the revenues generated by the cotton farming that might replace it. Water scarcity issues that are just now emerging in the Awash valley also alter fundamentally the framework for evaluating alternative land use systems. The unit of comparison is a hypothetical hectare of riverine floodplain left to pastoralism as opposed to the observed returns per hectare from various forms of cotton and sugar cultivation in the Awash valley. The chapter examines the ability of cotton and sugar farming to compensate the national economy for the loss in livestock output. Like cotton ginning, sugar refining may be more profitable than farming alone, but it would also appear to be more risky, and vertical integration may exacerbate income instability.
