The shortcomings of the current land reforms suggest that voluntary;market-based transactions of land might not be a suitable measure to redistribute land;not to speak of wealth and power. The “policy” of national reconciliation has delivered one-sided benefits. The politics of national reconciliation are used to justify the status quo – an avoidance strategy to address the structural problems in Namibia. A more radical approach must be considered to redistribute land and capital. Only then will formerly disadvantaged people become equal co-owners of Namibia’s land and wealth.

One of the most striking things about some of the study sites in the A1 (smallholder) land reform schemes of Zimbabwe is the amount of small-scale irrigation going on. This is not on schemes or in formalised group gardens;but irrigation by individual farmers;many using small pump sets and pipes. This has been investigated in Masvingo;in Mvurwi in high-potential Mashonaland East;and in Chikobedzi in Chiredzi district in the dry lowveld. It seems to be a widespread phenomenon but is emerging largely unnoticed and unsupported.

An analysis of the July South African report on land and agriculture which documents the sorry tale of land reform since 1994. Says action on land reform is long overdue. Makes sensible recommendations on expropriation. Suggests a policy shift towards equity as a goal of land reform and a shift towards redistribution. Makes the case for substantial (at least half) allocations to women and a focus on urban/peri-urban land. Adding to redistribution;restitution and land tenure reform;it suggests a fourth pillar – land administration.

A paper from the Agricultural Policy Research on Africa (APRA) programme in Zimbabwe supported by a DFID grant to IDS;Sussex. Explores the intersecting factors that have shifted pathways of commercialisation;mostly of tobacco and maize;in Mvurwi area in northern Mazowe district;Zimbabwe;since 1890. Looks at five periods;starting with early colonisation by white settlers;then examines the consolidation of ‘European agriculturefollowing World War II;before investigating the liberation war era from the mid-1970s.

This article examines the empirical facts about the actual outcome of Zimbabwe's 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 Zimbabwe's 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.

Land questions have invigorated agrarian studies and economic history, with particular emphases on its control, since Marx. Words such as ‘exclusion’, ‘alienation’, ‘expropriation’, ‘dispossession’, and ‘violence’ describe processes that animate land histories and those of resources, property rights, and territories created, extracted, produced, or protected on land. Primitive and on-going forms of accumulation, frontiers, enclosures, territories, grabs, and racializations have all been associated with mechanisms for land control.

No Abstract

Redistributive land reform and agrarian reforms since 2000 progressively changed some of Zimbabwe's 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.

This article explores whether mechanisation affects patterns of accumulation and differentiation in Zimbabwe's post land reform where policy consistently disadvantages smallholders. Is the latest mechanisation wave any different? The article considers dynamics of tractor access and accumulation trajectories across and within land use types in Mvurwi area. Larger, richer and well-connected farmers draw on patronage networks to access tractors and accumulate further. Some small to medium-scale farmers generate surpluses and invest in tractors or pay for services.

According to the current land policy of Ethiopia, rural households are legally allowed to access agricultural lands. Nonetheless, the difficulty of rural population in accessing farmlands makes controversial authenticity of this land tenure to solve problems of household farmland access. This study aimed at assessing the effects of the current land tenure on augmenting household farmland access in Ethiopia. The study followed a mixed-methods research design to investigate the variables in the study.

Executive Summary

Violence has spiked in Zimbabwe’s gold mining sector, costing hundreds of people their lives and triggering a police operation that led to the arrest of thousands. Media and government blame artisanal miners, who dig using little mechanisation and often without licences but are the country’s main gold producers. Yet the bloodshed is better seen as a symptom of Zimbabwe’s flawed centralised gold buying scheme, patronage-based economy and obsolete legal and regulatory system.

The battle for land reform is a persistent and intensifying dimension of politics and social life in the Global South where people are struggling to escape the claws of colonialism and capitalism. Here, the violent history of being stripped of the land and forced to sell labor power has left a legacy of enormous destruction both to the land and to society. Various movements are rising up to resist this injustice by advocating for the transformation of the relationship that people have with the land.