Beyond their technical side, these agricultural relations often served as a form of local diplomacy meant to co‐opt Ethiopian farmers and thus prepare the ground for the submission of rebel groups, who relied entirely on rural communities for their defense and sustainment.

Albeit in the absence of direct evidence, it might be hypothesized that these attempts contributed to the almost complete deterioration of rebel activities in Hirna and in the surrounding areas since 1937.

[…]

Being just a few Italian farmers in an predominant Ethiopian rural world, the Ente Romagna did not and could not have the means to force evictions from the farm.

The interaction and agreement with the indigenous communities of the surroundings represented in fact — in the absence of military support — the only feasible perspective for the Ente Romagna in those circumstances.

[…]

First started as an emergency measure and a provisional expedient, the sharecropping agreements with local farmers became one of the main elements that allowed the Ente Romagna to provide cereal supplies to the Italian population in the Amhara capital Gondar up until the downfall of the Empire in mid‐1941.

In different forms and degrees, Ethiopian tenants and small farmers became integral parts of the agricultural activities of all [Fascist] colonization projects during the occupation.

Albeit concealed or minimized in official accounts, the interaction with and co‐optation of Ethiopian farming became in fact a predominant feature of the everyday life of both state‐led and private [Fascist] agriculture as well as an essential factor for their economic survival.

(Emphasis added.)