Sam Moyo

Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe

This article examines the empirical facts about the actual outcome of Zimbabwes land reform, based on years of field research. It shows that the popular assumption about failed land reform in Zimbabwe is wrong on several counts: the character of Zimbabwes land reform has been redistributive, and the extent of this has been wide enough to trigger significant progressive changes in the agrarian structure. This is despite some elites having benefited from the process and foreign-owned agro-industrial estates and conservancies being retained. The distribution of land among land reform beneficiaries has been relatively uneven, with some receiving larger land allocations than others, and this in turn influenced the differentiated access of these groups to farming services and infrastructure. Yet the productivity of small producers has grown slowly with output escalating recently. Three decades of land reform has recast land-based social relations in important ways, with the poor gaining more than previously believed.

The Radicalised State: Zimbabwe's Interrupted Revolution

This article conceptualises the revolutionary situation that gripped Zimbabwe from the late 1990s. That was the moment in which the two political questions that historically have galvanized peripheral capitalism – the agrarian and the national – were returned to the forefront of political life. We argue that the revolutionary situation resulted neither in a revolution, nor in mediocre reformism, nor in restoration. It resulted in an interrupted revolution, marked by a radical agrarian reform and a radicalised state – the first on the continent since the end of the Cold War.

Land Use and Agricultural Productivity in Zimbabwe

Given a continuation of current trends, with increasing population growth and declining food production, Southern Africa (excluding South Africa) which could nearly feed itself during 1979–81, will be only 64 per cent self-sufficient by the turn of the century. Zimbabwe has a particularly important role to play in trying to prevent such a disaster. It is by far the most important exporter of food and cash crops in the region, and has been allocated the task of co-ordinating a food-security strategy for the nine member-states of the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference, namely Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Land reform & changing social relations for farm workers in Zimbabwe

This article assesses the problem of extending social, political and land rights to farm workers in Zimbabwes commercial farming sector in the context of current debates and protests about land redistribution there. It contrasts traditional indifference to such workers with more recent attempts to address their needs and explores the difficulties which land redistribution could present for farm workers if their interests were not made part of the agenda of change. It argues for a holistic, transformative approach to redistribution and reform, an approach which contrasts markedly with ‐and goes well beyond ‐ nationalist, workerist and welfare strategies that have been put forward.

Changing Agrarian Relations after Redistributive Land Reform in Zimbabwe

Redistributive land reform and agrarian reforms since 2000 progressively changed some of Zimbabwes agrarian relations, particularly by broadening the producer and consumption base. However they fuelled new inequities in access to land and farm input and output markets. These complex structural changes are explored using a series of surveys, secondary sources and official documents. Findings show that exploitative agrarian labour practices continue despite the diversification of labour towards numerous farms and other enterprises. Agricultural output declined primarily due to reduced inputs and credit supplies, and frequent droughts, but has been rising since 2006. Increasing export production now involves more producers, driven by the diversification of agrarian merchants and contract farming. Agro-industrial capital has gradually increased its domestic operations in the supply of inputs and marketing, especially after re-liberalisation in 2008. Many new farmers accumulate assets although some struggle for social reproduction. Agrarian politics now entail new struggles over agrarian markets, land and labour rights.

Land concentration and accumulation after redistributive reform in post-settler Zimbabwe

Zimbabwes recent fast-track land reform was redistributive, but it retained significant enclaves of large-scale agro-industrial estates owned by transnational, domestic and state capital, despite unfulfilled popular and domestic elite demands for land. Such estates were encouraged by the state to produce agro-fuel (ethanol from sugar), sugar, tea, coffee, timber and citrus, with wildlife ranching for domestic and export markets, alongside expanded small food producers. This outcome reflects the unresolved contradictions of seeking autonomous development in the context of sanctions, domestic political polarisation and declining agricultural production, while promoting reintegration into broader world markets. Neoliberal policies replaced dirigisme by 2008 to promote stabilisation and agricultural recovery but with limited impact. Foreign agricultural investment in Zimbabwe is nonetheless atypical of the current neoliberal land grabbing in Africa, since Zimbabwe reversed past inequalities and retains some state autonomy, and residual land concentration remains contested.

The Politics of Land Distribution and Race Relations in Southern Africa

This chapter discusses the politics of land distribution and race relations is Southern Africa, with a particular focus on the experiences of the former settler colonial states of Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia. It examines how inequitable land relations have contributed to intensified race-based conflicts in the southern African region and shaped specific demands for land redistribution and land reform policies. The chapter relies on detailed case study evidence from Zimbabwe, as well as South Africa and Namibia, and implicitly assesses their implications for the entire southern Africa.

M. J. Spierenburg, Strangers, Spirits and Land Reforms: conflicts about land in Dande, northern Zimbabwe . Leiden: Brill (pb 978 9004139 57 2). 2004, 260 pp.

events and accusations. In the 1980s and 1990s, violent episodes erupted in Green Valley, where perceived witches were either killed or expelled from local villages by ‘comrades’ (ANC youth) who presented themselves as guardians of community morality – effectively replacing the vacuum left by the subversion of chiefly authority through Betterment and Bantu Authorities. The only shortcoming of Niehaus’s insightful and mature work is the noticeable absence of comparative material, especially concerning witchcraft in neighbouring Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Niehaus does hint at the heterogeneity of the phenomenon in Green Valley, and that there are many ‘different types’ of witchcraft and sprit possession (p. 24), but does not fully investigate the crossover between elements of witchcraft and spirit possession derived from Mozambique and Zimbabwe, as partially expounded in a 2002 paper in African Affairs. He also states that ‘new lines of contestation are likely to emerge as witchcraft becomes embroiled in the politics of African nationalism’ (p. 184), but fails to investigate the wider significance of witchcraft beyond the borders of South Africa. This is unfortunate, especially given the significance that David Lan attached to witchcraft as a mechanism and tool of war in neighbouring Zimbabwe during the late 1970s.

Crisis and Opportunity: Environment and Development in Africa@@@The Southern African Environment: Profiles of the SADC Countries

The Southern African Environment provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the countries of the SADC region ? Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The area is one of rapid political, economic and social change, and each of the 10 country profiles in this book provides full and detailed information on the physical and human geography, environmental problems, resource base, institutional structures for environmental management and the issues associated with institutional change. Each profile was drafted by local environmental experts and is based on extensive fieldwork and research originally commissioned by the Dutch government. The report provides a unique synthesis of this richly-endowed but troubled region.