The Politics of the Fast track Land Reform Programme 2000 (original) (raw)
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Political Economy Analysis of Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe
In 2000 there was a Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe which was undertaken in midst of socio-political upheavals and resulted in radical and widespread restructuring of the agrarian economy in Zimbabwe. Highly divergent views exist on how land was acquired and redistributed in the period (largely) between 2000 and 2002 based on studies in very different parts of the country. In this dissertation, I explored three different cases, from different parts of the country each with different political contexts and, in a comparative way, and examined the forms and styles of politics which were involved in land acquisition in relation to the broader literature on African politics. My central observation was that the local political context, affected by a range of historical, social, economic factors, had a huge impact on what happened during land reform. An analytical review of the three cases-Chipinge, Goromonzi and Masvingo-has shown that simple generalizations about Zimbabwe's land reform political dynamics are inappropriate and a much more differentiated account is needed.
The Zimbabwe government embarked on various models of land redistribution ranging from the land resettlement under the willing seller willing buyer dictated by the Lancaster House Conference soon after gaining independence in 1980 to the Fast Track Land Reform (FTLR) of 2000. The FTLR was premised on poverty eradication and economic development in rural agrarian societies. Contrary to the initial agenda the process has seen the worsening of food security and economic status of most rural societies and the nation at large as the country has become a perpetual food beggar and importer. Land redistribution has been acutely skewed in favour of ruling elites with multiple farms and ruling party supporters. This led to cell-phone farmers and partisan land allocation disregarding the initial aims, acute land degradation deforestation, gold panning and poaching of wildlife reducing biodiversity. Land reform had been portrayed by ruling elites as a befitting nationalist policy but it compromised the economic security of the general populace. There is an urgent need to re-redress the partisan land ownership created by the FTLR through a comprehensive, diagnostic and remedial land audit if Zimbabwe is to graduate from food insecurity. The land reform policy was examined using the greed versus grievance paradigm (Collier and Hoffler) and Relative Deprivation by Ted Gurr.
Introduction: Roots of the Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe
2013
The Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) implemented during the 2000s in Zimbabwe represents the only instance of radical redistributive land reforms since the end of the Cold War. It reversed the racially-skewed agrarian structure and discriminatory land tenures inherited from colonial rule, whereby over 6,000 large-scale white farmers and a few foreign and nationallyowned agro-industrial estates controlled most of the prime land, water resources and bio-reserves, while relegating the majority of the population to marginal lands and cheap-labour services. The land reform also radicalised the state towards a nationalist, introverted accumulation strategy, against a broad array of unilateral Western sanctions. Indeed, Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform, in its social and political dynamics, must be compared to the leading land reforms of the twentieth century, which include those of Mexico, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cuba and Mozambique. Zimbabwe’s land reform may ...
The fast-track land reform and agrarian change in Zimbabwe
Review of African Political Economy
Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) formally began with the Land Acquisition Act of 2002. The Program, that effectively co-opted the farm occupations since 1998, redistributed land from white-owned farms and estates, as well as state lands, to more than 150,000 farmers under two models, A1 and A2. The A1 model allocated small plots for growing crops and grazing land to landless and poor farmers, while the A2 model allocated farms to new black commercial farmers who had the skills and resources to farm profitably, reinvest and raise agricultural productivity. The number of large capitalist farms, mainly white owned, fell by around 75%, while there was a 16% drop in the number of large foreign and domestically owned agro-estates (Moyo 2011a). Until recently, the FTLRP generated heated debates that polarised opinion between those who were in favour of redressing the colonial racial distribution of land in favour of black farmers and those who were against this objective as well as the way it was done (Cliffe et al. 2013), the latter almost universally supported by media and governments of the global North and especially the former colonial power, the United Kingdom. However, there is now a relatively large body of literature that has addressed the views that dominated scholarship in the earlier period (
DIVERGENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE LAND REFORM IN ZIMBABWE
A variety of views on land reform in Zimbabwe have emerged in recent years. The background to the discussion on the perspectives on the land reform revealed the significant contribution of the outcome of the February 2000 referendum on the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe. This paper interrogates the various views on land reform in Zimbabwe under four dominant perspectives: the political perspective, livelihoods perspective, human rights perspective and agricultural perspective. The paper shows that there are divergent views within these dominant perspectives. One view within the political perspective holds that the government ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), led by Robert Mugabe, manipulated demand for land to gain political mileage. Views within the political perspective further argue that land reform was used as a weapon against white farmers for allegedly supporting the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party. There was no consensus on what happened to the livelihoods of black farmers after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Whereas, within the livelihoods perspectives it was noted that the livelihoods of farm workers declined.
This study focused on the significance of land reform programme in Zimbabwe. Thus, Mashonaland East province was selected as a case study because historically this province suffered a lot in the first and second Chimurenga wars. The phenomenology research philosophy and a case study research design were adopted. Results from the study show that land reform was a significant event in the history of Zimbabwe despite its shortcomings instigated by poor planning and corruption. Furthermore, it was established that farmers are having difficulties in accessing finance due to lack of collateral, lack of guaranteed and viable markets, poor roads, the handling and transporting of inputs and outputs is complicated and expensive which at times has resulted in soaring post-harvest losses and farmers at times are using low quality inputs due to lack of capital, which have also resulted in poor production and little impact on farm profits. Consequently, the little that farmers earn is not sufficient for them to invest in savings, capital assets like scotch carts, livestock, cars and irrigation equipment among others. Therefore, it was concluded that land reform is not contributing enough to agricultural development in Zimbabwe, as it has little impact on profits, savings and investments. Accordingly, the study thus recommends the government to restore agricultural land titles to ensure farmers' improved access to finance from commercial banks as well as rehabilitating, dams, roads and railway lines.