Produce, Export but Control the Khat Money (Dire Dawa, Ethiopia)[Produire, exporter mais contrôler l’argent du khat (Dire Dawa, Éthiopie)]

Khat cultivation no longer meets the domestic economy that has long characterized it, and its consumption in Ethiopia and around the world has continued to grow. This article explores the local consequences of these global circulations by focusing on the production and export sectors and questions the power relations that khat generates in this peripheral region of Harargue. We show, on the one hand, that the boom in the number of producers and the expansion of land dedicated to khat run counter to the national agricultural development policy and the food security policy advocated by international aid agencies. On the other hand, we analyze the restructuring of the export sector by the State-party, which, articulated to the international prohibitions, controls part of the profits but not without limits: indeed, in these scale effects, the global khat can be read in situ as a revelation of the weakness, even a flaw, of the Ethiopian State.