Scope for Empowering Women Through Entrepreneurial Development in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable (FFV) Sector in Zimbabwe

This study investigated, the nature of women's agriculture entrepreneurship in rural development; obstacles and best practices of women's entrepreneurship in the FFV sector; key policies, institutions and drivers promoting or inhibiting women entrepreneurship

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

Zimbabwe's new land crisis: Large-scale land investments at Chisumbanje

Zimbabwe’s investments in agriculture, after a contested Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) underpinned by often violent land occupations (these were largely contained by the state by 2005), have triggered a debate on the meaning and import of ‘international land grabs’ (Matondi 2015). Internationally, the debates have been increasing, with the drive towards the cultivation of feedstock for the production of renewable fuel being one driving force. The mandatory blending of biofuels in national fuel stocks has been accepted and today 62 countries have introduced mandatory blending, with South Africa introducing a target of 2% blending in October 2014. It is in respect of the emerging trends that we sought to decipher the meaning of ‘land grabs’, ‘international land grabs’ and ‘agricultural investments’ as these mean different things in different contexts

Irrigation development and water resource management

A research paper on irrigation and water development in Zimbabwe.In tropical and sub-tropical regions water is a highly variable natural resource subject to seasonal as well as long-term climatic changes. In Zimbabwe rainfall is the single most important climatic factor affecting crop production. The struggle for access to and use of water resources is regarded as the second most important conflict after land (Matiza-Chiuta, 2000). Smallholder irrigation has always had a political dimension as it embodies land and water, two of the most contentious issues in Zimbabwean history (Rukuni, 1984). Water access tensions are omnipresent between smallholders, large-scale farmers and users. " The problems in the water sector include: competition for a scarce and finite resource between and among large-scale and smallholder farmers; poor water resource management; declining quality of the limited resource; disappearance of expensive irrigation infrastructure during the land transfers; competition for state-generated finance; lack of a common policy or benchmark by which to judge actions in the sector; a narrow band of stakeholder involvement in the sector; too little coordination; and recurrent drought.The WK Kellogg Foundation

Zimbabwe’s contested large-scale land-based investment: The chisumbanje ethanol project

Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform from 2000 onward yielded significant land transfers, but led the country to face debilitating production challenges and lack of investment in agriculture. Since then, Zimbabwe has not crafted a land policy, and depends on a raft of existing land laws (such as the Agricultural Land Settlement Act, Deeds Act and Surveying Act) for land management. These are old pieces of legislation that cannot resolve land-related problems facing rural people, such as the lack of clarity on land tenure, land valuation and compensation, disputes related to land access, poor land administration and weak land-use planning. These problems converge to make investment in land a mammoth challenge, which underscores the need for a clear land policy

Who will make the 'best' use of Africa's land? Lessons from Zimbabwe

Conflict over African land – between small holders and large industrial farmers and between domestic farmers and global agribusinesses – raises key questions about who will make the best use of African land and which farmers do most to decrease poverty and produce more food, industrial inputs, and exports. Zimbabwe has already gone through two major changes in land occupation, and thus provides an important test of what is the 'best' use of the land. Three measures of 'best' use have been cited in Zimbabwe: reward for military victory, poverty reduction, and agricultural production. Initial evidence indicates that commercial small holder production is a better use of the land than larger, more mechanised farming

European union leadership in biofuels regulation: Europe as a normative power?

The rapid emergence of the European Union (EU) as a leader in global environmental politics has led many scholars to argue in favour of the EU being a ‘normative power’ in international relations. This paper critically examines the EU's biofuels policy and evaluates whether its attempts to lead by example and shape international practice in this field could support such arguments. Europe's biofuel policies are evaluated through a sustainable development lens, so as to determine the extent to which it has embraced a holistic approach to sustainability. While not dismissing that the identity of the EU is indeed an explanatory factor and that normative intentions may well be regarded as a motivating force, this study argues that an interest-based perspective on international environmental regulation offers a supplementary view of how an actor's preferences for an international regime are shaped. By erecting barriers aimed at shielding its own inefficient domestic biofuels production the EU is in essence placing trade competitiveness and economic growth above environmental protection, thus permitting sustainability concerns to be addressed only in part

Labour after Land Reform: The Precarious Livelihoods of Former Farmworkers in Zimbabwe

What happens to labour when major redistributive land reform restructures a system of settler colonial agriculture? This article examines the livelihoods of former farmworkers on large‐scale commercial farms who still live in farm compounds after Zimbabwe's land reform. Through a mix of surveys and in‐depth biographical interviews, four different types of livelihood are identified, centred on differences in land access. These show how diverse, but often precarious, livelihoods are being carved out, representing the ‘fragmented classes of labour’ in a restructured agrarian economy. The analysis highlights the tensions between gaining new freedoms, notably through access to land, and being subject to new livelihood vulnerabilities. The findings are discussed in relation to wider questions about the informalization of the economy and the role of labour and employment in a post‐settler agrarian economy, where the old ‘farmworker’ label no longer applies

Livelihoods, Land and Political Economy: Reflections on Sam Moyo’s Research Methodology

This article focuses on the methodological lessons from Sam Moyo’s scholarship. Sam’s research is characterised by a combination of detailed empirical investigation, deep knowledge of the technical and practical aspects of agricultural production and farming livelihoods, and bigpicture political economy analysis and theory. Sam’s method is an insightful contemporary application of the method originally set out in Marx’s Grundrisse. Many contemporary explorations of agrarian political economy fail to sustain the important tension and dialectical debate, between diverse empirical realities and their ‘multiple determinations and relations’ and wider theorisation of the ‘concrete’ features of emergent processes of change. The implications of Sam’s methodological approach for the analysis of Zimbabwe’s land reform are discussed, especially in relation to the land occupations and the politics of agrarian reform since 2000

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.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 Right -- 8. Social Organisation and the Reconstruction of Communities -- Conclusion: From a 'Crisis' to a 'Prosperous' Future?</p