Moyo, Sam. "Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe". The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.38, No.3 (2011): 493-531.

Moyo, Sam. "Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe". The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.38, No.3 (2011): 493-531.

• Most literature on the fast-track land reform program adopted since 2000 has focused on aspects of corruption and violence within the process, pointed out how land was unevenly distributed and that only members of the ruling party benefited. This obscures a number of positive effects that the cumulative land reform had on social relations (493-494).
• Scholarship is also rife with assumptions about a collapse of Zimbabwean agriculture caused by the loss of White farmers and the spread of mismanagement of the farms redistributed by the state (494).
• "Contrary to the popular assumption that only cronies of the ruling party benefited from land redistribution, empirical data demonstrate that ordinary poor people benefited from land redistribution [...] Seventy percent of these beneficiaries are [...] small-scale family farm units" (502).
• Over the past 30 years, Zimbabwe instituted three cycles of land reforms: the first beginning in 1985, characterized by state purchase of land for redistribution alongside illegal occupation of land by rebels; the second from 1986 to 1999, called the economic structural adjustment program, including both state purchase of land and expropriation; and the fast track reform beginning in 2000, which featured both expropriation and support for extralegal occupation of land (495-496).
• With the goal in mind to produce a self-sustaining agricultural class that was not subject to serf-like conditions on large White farms, the Zimbabwean government divided redistributed land into A1 schemes, of small family farms, and A2 schemes, of large-scale capitalist farms run by Blacks (497).
• The land reform process was initiated with the explicit goal of de-racializing agricultural ownership, which had previously been dominated by the minority of White farmers, how also used land ownership to politically and economically dominated rural life. A wide range of Blacks, especially the landless poor, supported the land reform process, with lesser support coming from middle-class party members who benefited economically from the reforms (496).
• Between 1980 and 2009, over 13 million of the 15 million hectares which had been controlled by White families in 1980 were redistributed by the government to over 240,000 mostly rural families. Over 70% of the transferred land was made into A1 farms given to the rural and urban poor. The A2 program gave out much larger plots of land to a smaller number of families, number around 16,000 recipients (497).
• According to a survey of residents of 6 districts, over 82% of farmers reported being given land by the government for free, with 15% acquiring land through extralegal occupation supported by the government, and 3% through purchase directly from the previous owners (497).
• More than the just the official beneficiaries have benefited from the redistribution of land, as over 30% of tenants report unofficial sharing their land with family members and friends. This was a common practice on both A1 and A2 farms (499).
• The land redistribution programs undertaken have left Zimbabwe with over 70% of agricultural land being held by small tenant farmers, while 13% is middle-sized farms primarily created through A2 schemes, and only 11% of land is held by large farms and estates (499, 510).
• The state has not taken steps to redistributed the remaining 1.7 million hectares, which represent a combination of White-owned export agro-businesses, mines on agricultural land, and large estates collectively held by institutions such as churches, schools, and civil society organizations (499).
• Remaining White farms, even when not purchased, and still undergoing schemes to reduce the racial elements of economic domination, through the often-forcible entry of Black investors into part-ownership of White farms (499).
• Corruption has been common during the land redistribution process, often through misuse of lands directly owned by the state, as government elites exploiting this land tax-free and without ownership are incentivized to keep in as state land despite long lists of citizens' requests for land distribution (501).
• Local elites involved in the redistribution process also made sure that they received the best parcels of land, sometimes in amounts exceeding the recommended farm sizes. They also seized ownership of much of the agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation, left on the farms (501).
• Corruption was more prevalent in the distribution of A2 schemes, where cronyism and political connections, sometimes based on party or church membership, played a large role in determining the quality of farms received. The distribution of A1 schemes, however, was much more based on local politics (505).
• The distribution of large landholdings to small farmers has increased the equality of access to resources beyond agricultural goods, as tenants farmers also report increased access to water and mineral resources previously controlled and monopolized by large White landholdings (501-502).
• Some White farmers have felt victimized by the land reform programs, arguing that they were discriminated against because of their race. However, the presence of White farmers as 4% of large landowners, mainly in the drier south, demonstrates that they still own more land that their 0.5% proportion of the population would suggest (502).
• There have also been claims of regional or ethnic favoritism in the distribution of A2 schemes, which can be provisionally confirmed through a small number of high-profile cases of regional favoritism in land distribution. There certainly appears to be a local bias in A2 scheme distribution, as those requesting land outside the province of their birth were frequently rejected on unclear grounds (503).
• Some of this variation can be explained by different levels of extralegal land occupation in different regions, as some districts did not mobilize. However, most cannot. (503).
• There is a surprising amount of cooperation between White and Black farmowners and agriculturalists. Black A2 farmowners will often hire Whites to manage their farms in return for a share of the profit, especially in farms produced high-value export commodities (507).
• Fast track distribution greatly increased women's access to land ownership, largely driven by a number of NGOs and feminist advocacy groups. Now between 12% and 18% of women directly own land, compared to under 5% prior to land reform. The women holding land still are relatively privileged, with poorer or disadvantaged women less able to surmount the sexist obstacles in acquiring land (504).
• Foreign ownership of land, especially of smaller landholdings, has been greatly reduced following the fast track distribution program. Only 23% of foreign land was not expropriated or extralegally occupied following 1999, with the remaining land overwhelmingly large agro-business estates (505).
• The land reform program succeeded in both making land ownership more fairly distributed and also created a Black capitalist class of large farm-owners to compete with the White capitalist farmers. Most beneficiaries of the A2 schemes were of the middle or upper class, although they came disproportionately from rural areas. Wealthier individuals also tended to be more involved in corruption which led to their ownership of multiple A2 farms (506).
• Although the initial land distribution was achieved through the purposeful subversion of private property rights in order to correct historic inequalities, many Black landowners running large-scale or medium-size A2 farms quickly joined the industrialists, financial interests, and White farmers in advocating greater protection of private property (507).
• Former agricultural workers on White farms have been excluded from much of the land distribution process, because their work made them both socially isolated from local Zimbabwean communities and technically supplied them with land, although in reality they worked this land conditionally in return for labour on large White farms (507-508).
• While maybe 10% of former farm workers did receive land through distribution schemes, most either remained as laborers on remaining White farms, returned to villages as unemployed poor, or received work on A2 schemes as farms laborers. The 100,000 farm workers working on A2 farms are still vulnerable to expulsion, since they are not technically landless and often lack the social connections to secure their position (507-508).
• Former farm laborers are by far the most insecure group following land redistribution. Even when they have received some land for sustenance farming, it is insecurely held and unclearly marked. They still lack basic labor rights, are poorly paid, and sometimes subject to violence (511).
• In additional to their disadvantaged legal position, farm laborers faced a number of social exclusions from the general Zimbabwean population. Despite all being born in Zimbabwe and most without foreign heritage, they are often assumed to be foreigners. They are also assumed of being 'reactionaries' for their supposed support and closeness with the White farming class (508).
• The A1 and A2 schemes have different land tenure laws, with the A2 schemes being much more secure in ownership, in return for having to pay taxes which the A1 schemes are exempt from. Despite this, many A2 farms have not yet been made to pay taxes, further increasing inequality between A1 and A2 landholders (508).
• Sometimes land ownership is unclear, and appropriate legal documents have not yet been received by farmers. This has not resulted in any issues with actual farming, but it as prevented some farmers, mostly A2 landholders, from accessing loans and investment (509).
• Although the legal security of landholdings is not a national issue in Zimbabwe, there are certain areas where it remains a major issue, especially among A1 farmers. Areas at the outskirts of cities are the most vulnerable, where sometimes half of the A1 farmers face eviction and lack adequate legal protection (509).
• The new land tenure system created via fast track redistribution following 2000 has fundamentally changed labor relations in Zimbabwe, which were formally based on exploitive economic power forcing the landless poor into insecure and poorly paid positions in farming or mining. Many landless peasants and urban poor received land, allowing most of the population to either work their own land or work for friends and family (510-511).
• Whites still own a disproportionate number of the small remaining number of large agro-businesses, where Black capitalists own only 8% of estates of large-size, and these are mostly on poor land acquired under A2 schemes. The majority of these large and very large estates, greater than 1,500 hectares, are owned either White farmers, the state, or foreign investors (514-516).
• Most of the foreign companies and transnational corporations with very large estates in Zimbabwe are based in South Africa, and concentrated in sugar and coffee production. These firms are mainly financed with local Zimbabwean or British capital (516).
• Some of these large commercial farms were extralegally occupied during the fast track redistribution program, but this only affected a maximum of 10% of cultivated land. Unlike other situations, the government legally purchased and distributed this land, rather than recognizing the occupation as legitimate (516).
• State-owned farms and landholdings have been common in Zimbabwe since the 1960s, as a method of the colonial state control large tracks of forest. Since the 1980s, the Zimbabwean government has attempted to turn many the state farms into revenue-generating enterprises, including heavily investment in irrigation and other infrastructure (516-517).
• The Zimbabwean state generally tolerates extralegal occupations of state land less than other land occupations, and expelled without compensation landless peasants who occupied state land during the fast track program (517).
• The Zimbabwean economy at independence was still extremely dependent on agriculture, with agricultural commodities making up 40% of all exports and employing 70% of the population. This production was concentrated in a monopoly of private White farms, state companies, and British or South African firms (517-518).
• The Rhodesian government sought to industrialize the country, but in a way that preserved agricultural wealth and capital ownership for the White minority and kept the Black population in an impoverished state as either tenant farmers or industrial workers, and often both due to poor job security (517-518).
• Once Zimbabwe began to break up the agricultural monopoly of the Rhodesian Whites during liberalization in the 1980s, agricultural output began to fall. This process, although driven by de-monopolization, has furthered by state retreat in the 1990s, which pressured many farmers into growing food crops, diminishing total efficiency of production as the number of single-crop farms dropped (518).
• The precipitous decline in the total volume of agricultural goods produced in Zimbabwe first during the 1990s, and again in the mid-2000s, was largely caused by the decreased ability of new farmers to access the infrastructure, fertilizer, and other goods to produce the high crop yields achieved under White monopolization; they also cannot access financing to buy these goods. This lack of access to agricultural goods also made Zimbabwean agriculture more susceptible to drought, which regularly causes yield decreases of 30% in dry regions (520).
• In 2003, the government recognized that lack of access to machinery, fertilizer, and other agricultural imports was dragging down productivity rates, and attempted to distribute tractors and other investments. This mainly benefited that larger A2 schemes, however, leaving smallholders stuck without necessary inputs or infrastructure to produce high yields (522).
• "Production levels remain below expectations, largely due to the shortages of fertilisers, irrigation facilities and draft power arising from reduced domestic agro-industrial input supply capacities and foreign exchange constraints on imports" (526).
• Conflict in agriculture in Zimbabwe is no longer primarily based around class and racial divides, but instead concerns competition between Black farmers, especially large landowners, over access to government and international capital for investment. Larger A2 farmers, and middle-class A1 farmers, have a distinct advantage in this process, as they are able to attract much more local and international capital than poorer farmers without political connections (524).
• Zimbabwe's separation from most international financial markets through the sanctions regime has made domestic sources of capital even more important. This means that private funding by the remaining foreign or White-owned agro-businesses is abnormally important, and that political connections which determine access to government financing are critical in farm development (524).
• The author suggests that after 1996, when a number of severe sanctions were placed on Zimbabwe and all aid from the IMF and World Bank was cut off, the Zimbabwean government stopped being fundamentally revolutionary and began to accept neoliberal tenants, as they benefited that newly secured elite of all political parties (525).
• "Despite the outcome [of land reform] being generally progressive, a key regressive feature is the substantial enlargement of the upper middle and elite class beneficiaries, most of whom call for even larger land allocations under freehold tenure"(526).