Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform has had a bad press. Reports of violence and intimidation have obscured the reality that formal procedures used to settle black farmers in model villages bear a striking resemblance to earlier colonial procedures. Whilst colonial myths about African farmers as subsistence oriented and inefficient live on, evidence from south-eastern Zimbabwe suggests that the reforms have benefited some poor black farmers

A report from the Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa programme at the Institute of Development Studies assesses land resettlement in the Chiredzi district. The land invasions launched by activists in 2000 – with the backing of the ruling ZANU(PF) party, the army and other state agents – are compared to the authoritarian land-use planning and disputes of the colonial era.

In 1980 independent Zimbabwe inherited a skewed land distribution system in which some 6 000 white-owned farms occupied over a third of Zimbabwe, much of it highly fertile land. Meeting the expectations of a land-hungry population was limited by restrictions imposed by the Lancaster House Agreement (which ended minority white rule) and the subsequent inability of the new government to compensate white owners with foreign exchange.

After limited redistributions in the 1980s little subsequently happened until 2000 – apart from an increase in land reform rhetoric at the time of elections. The Zimbabwean Government blamed a combination of lack of funds and technical, legal and bureaucratic delays for the slow pace of land redistribution. Officials less keen on the resettlement programme highlighted how potential production losses might undermine market confidence in Zimbabwe and lead to higher unemployment.

The massive acceleration of redistribution since 2000 has been condemned by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the independent press, Zimbabwe’s former donors and commercial farmers as hasty, unplanned, chaotic and corrupt. Yet the study found that the new settlers were actually using the technical practices of colonial land-use planning to convince officials that resettlement is ‘proper’ and ‘modern’.

In the former ranches of Chiredzi district fast-track reform has produced results:

• There had been substantial state assistance in the form of seed and input packages, tillage provision and loans for restocking.
• Schools have been built and accommodation provided for teachers and agricultural extension officers.
• Not only war veterans, local elites and party activists have received land – it has also gone to the young, women, unemployed and the landless.

However, accusations of violence aside, the style of Zimbabwe’s current land reform is problematic. The reforms risk producing one-size-fits-all coercive land-use regulations at odds with poor farmers’ livelihoods strategies. They seek to select settlers on the grounds of their ‘productivity’ – thus undermining claims that they will reduce inequalities.

Planners admit that the settlers may have undermined them in the planning of resettlement areas but expect the balance of power to eventually shift back to the technocrats in state planning offices. Despite the new political context, the quest for ‘order’ and the influence of authoritarian land planning methods continue to run deep when it comes to land-use planning, resettlement and rural development in Zimbabwe.

Source(s):
‘From jambanja to planning: the reassertion of technocracy in land reform in south-eastern Zimbabwe?’ by Joseph Chaumba, Ian Scoones and William Wolmer, Journal of Modern African Studies, 41, 4 (2003), pp. 533–554, 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development

id21 Research Highlight: 11 March 2004

Further Information:
Joseph Chaumba
Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535
South Africa

University of Western Cape, South Africa

Ian Scoones and William Wolmer
Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa
Environment Group
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Balmer
Brighton BN1 9RE
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1273 606261   
Fax: +44 (0) 1273 621202/691647
Contact the contributor: I.Scoones@ids.ac.uk

Contact the contributor: W.wolmer@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

Other related links:
'The crisis of land distribution in South Africa'

'Harvesting the past? Lessons for land reform in Asia'

'Zimbabwe - Land reform and resettlement: assessment and suggested framework for the future' - UNDP report

'Zimbabwe land reform and resettlement cooperative agreement' - USAID

'Land and Agrarian reform in South Africa'

ICT's and Land reform in Southern Africa