Zimbabwe's Fast-Track Land Reform

The Fast-Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe has emerged as a highly contested reform process both nationally and internationally. The image of it has all too often been that of the widespread displacement and subsequent replacement of various people, agricultural-related production systems, facets and processes. The reality, however, is altogether more complex.

Providing new, in-depth and much-needed empirical research, and based on a broader geographical scope than any previous study carried out on the subject, Zimbabwe’s Fast-Track Land Reform examines how processes such as land acquisition, allocation, transitional production outcomes, social life, gender and tenure, have influenced and been influenced by the forces driving the programme. It also explores the ways in which the land-reform programme has created a new agrarian structure based on small- to medium-scale farmers. In attempting to resolve the problematic issues the reforms have raised, the authors argue that it is this new agrarian formation which provides the greatest scope for improving Zimbabwe’s agriculture and development.

A landmark work on a subject of considerable controversy.

Table of Contents

1: Understanding Fast Track Land Reforms in Zimbabwe

2: Land Occupations as the Trigger for Compulsory Land Acquisition

3: Interrogating Land Allocation

4: Juggling Land Ownership Rights in Uncertain Times

5: The Complexities of Production Outcomes

6: Accessing Services and Farm Level Investments

7: 'Revolutionary Progress' without Change in Women's Land Rights

8: Social Organisation and the Reconstruction of Communities

Conclusion: From a 'Crisis' to a 'Prosperous' Future?

About the Author:

Prosper B. Matondi is the executive director of the Ruzivo Trust, a not-for-profit organization based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He holds a PhD in rural development from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences based in Uppsala, Sweden. He has more than 16 years of experience researching on land, natural resources management, environmental policy and planning in Zimbabwe, within the southern African region and internationally. He has published widely and has contributed to many international, regional and international networks on land and agrarian reform issues. His latest publication by ZED books is 'Biofuels, Land grabbing and Food Security in Africa' with Kjell Havnevik, and Atakilte Beyene, 2011. He sits on various advisory forums on land, agriculture and livelihoods issues in Zimbabwe and beyond.