Oya (2010:28) estimates that about 42% of land in Zimbabwe after the FTLRP is communal land, on which an estimated 73% of the population eke out a living from subsistence farming. His analysis shows that despite the FTLRP in Zimbabwe the largest number of people remained in communal areas including the semi-arid areas. Matondi (1998:98) observes that the FTLRP resulted in a new agrarian formation dominated by small- to medium-scale farms. It reduced the oversized commercial farms of about 2000 hectares to an average of 500 hectares. Moyo (2004:112) confirms that substantial changes in Zimbabwe‟s agrarian structure occurred after the FTLRP in terms of differentiated farm size allocations and the inferred class character and nationality of beneficiaries, as well as the demography of the farming population in terms of its racial and gender composition. These changes, according to Moyo (2004:24), forced adjustments in the character of agro-service providers and services, as it has changed the
39 character of the rural labour process.
Matondi (2008:106) observes from his studies in Zimbabwe that a significant amount of land was set aside for two models that were developed, the A1 and A2 models, with medium and large commercial schemes falling in the A2 category. In his analysis of the new classification system, Gundani (2002: 99-103) explains that the A1 model, in which smallholder farmers live in a villagised or self-contained manner, was meant to decrease land pressure in communal areas as well as provide livelihood assets to the poor. However, Gundani is greatly concerned with the type of land tenure and security associated with this model. The offer letter to the A1 farmer stipulates that the offer can be withdrawn anytime by the government with no obligation to compensate for any improvements. This has made A1 settlement an insecure investment for new farmers.
This model was designed to benefit people from communal areas including semi-arid areas. In this regard these new A1 model farmers came from marginalised and semi-arid areas to settle in prime land areas, but without the important natural asset of security of tenure. The same beneficiaries were not supported by agricultural inputs from the government as industries closed due to a deepening economic crisis. With commercial agriculture now dominated by rural people without inputs, capital poverty increased in communal areas as they used to depend on commercial farms for food and contract employment. Matondi (2010) argues that most A1 model beneficiaries came from cities and towns and not from semi-arid communal areas, indicating that the FTLRP failed to decongest these semi-arid areas. Thus while the model was a success in certain aspects, it failed to address semi-arid communal problems because of severe shortages of agricultural inputs, and agricultural production declined severely in both new resettlement and semi-arid communal areas.
Land rights have remained in the hands of the government, which has the prerogative to deny access or remove settlers at any given time (Sadomba 2008). The land reform programme has a mixture of beneficiaries from the poor to the better -off in society including the wealthy, youths, the experienced and qualified in agriculture and some with no agricultural experience or skills. Moyo (2004:89) notes that in most cases beneficiaries had neither government nor donor support.
40 For Moyo (2004:74) the FTLRP reconfigured Zimbabwe‟s agrarian question, reflecting new problems for the transformation of agricultural and industrialisation processes, labour utilisation, mechanisation and support institutions in the public and private sphere. In this analysis Moyo (2004:46) is concerned about the absence of a strategy adequately crafted to ensure the sustainability of the new agrarian structure. He points to a clear shift in agrarian labour processes, including changing patterns of demand for and utilisation of farm labour, recruitment processes, wage and income patterns, and the power of organised farm labour to influence its interests. Moyo and Chambati (2004) agree that there is an increase in numbers of unemployed farm workers. The new employers are now A2 model farmers comprising mix of new black commercial farmers and a few remaining white farmers. This is different from A1 model farmers who are the new smallholder farmers recently resettled. These diverse employers re-engaged farm workers but on a limited basis, causing hundreds of thousands of farm workers to lose their livelihoods. In other words, the FTLRP was a disaster to the livelihoods of many poor farmers and farm workers (Chambati, 2004). Thus the new agrarian structure reflects a new set of rural power relations influencing labour structures and relations.
Rugube (2003:101), too, argues that despite some rural people having access to prime land the expectations that the FTLRP would decongest communal areas and lead to improved communal agricultural performance and better incomes for people in communal areas was not achieved as expected. People who moved to prime land areas were expected to equally benefit from the quality land for improved income, but Richardson (2006:29) argues that this thesis of improved agricultural performance and incomes in places of origin (communal areas) and places of settlement did not materialise because other compounding factors conspired to negatively affect agricultural production. Matondi (2008:88) shares the same argument as he shows that after the FTLRP the communal areas, particularly the semi-arid ones, emerged worse off for a variety of reasons. While these studies are useful, they ignore specific livelihoods in semi-arid areas after the FTLRP.
Alexander (2003:114) is another who argues that despite the hopes placed in the FTLRP for better agricultural performance; the policy resulted largely in people losing their livelihoods. The overall picture is that of massive job losses, virtual destruction of managerial and farm worker skills base resulting in huge food crisis, and the collapse of
41 Zimbabwe‟s foreign exchange earning capacity. The government‟s focus on rural development shifted from the marginalised rural areas to new settlement areas and this worsened the situation of peasants in communal areas established by the Land Apportionment Act of 1930. Owens (2003:15) argues that some people who benefited from the FTLRP continued holding onto land in communal areas of origin. This created split households as families spread risk through maintaining dual farming households as a fall-back plan if they were evicted from the new settlement areas. Ownership of plots in communal areas was thus never totally surrendered by most farmers, who now enjoy the security of owning two plots in different areas. One impact of splitting investment and spreading it over two separate households was reduced agricultural productivity. Most farmers left children in communal areas of origin where there were no social services such as schools or health points, resulting in increased insecurity for women and children. This agrees with Bryceson‟s (1996) argument that labour shortages in agricultural production lead to de-agrarianisation. This suggests that both communal areas and new settlement areas experienced de-agrarianisation during and after the FTLRP.
Richardson (2006:204) contends that the disappearance of external inputs such as fertilisers, seeds and pesticides during the period after the FTLRP made it even more difficult for people in semi-arid areas to depend on agricultural production. In addition when the FTLRP started it was dogged by successive droughts in most semi-arid areas, poor investment in production, equipment and inputs, lack of knowhow and shortage of labour, thus dragging down the overall Zimbabwean agricultural sector, which was now unable to feed its hungry population or supply raw materials to its agriculture-based industries (Richardson:2007). Generally the picture shows that the FTLRP brought about the collapse of agriculture and subsequent huge food shortages as well as exacerbating poverty even further. However, Richardson (2007:209) stresses that despite the decline in the agricultural sector it remains an important productive sector of the country‟s economy. In this new agrarian structure, the ones who lost out most were those from the semi-arid regions because of the drought. Agricultural inputs from commercial farms that are now owned by new black commercial farmers also declined. Due to smart sanctions some fertiliser industries had viability challenges and smallholder farmers in semi-arid communal areas were affected. The government attempted to support new black commercial farmers with inputs and equipment but failed due to financial constraints and limited donor support directly to government. Government efforts and focus on new black commercial farmers
42 became biased against smallholder farmers in semi-arid communal areas. As a result food production collapsed in communal areas.
Moyo and Makumbe (2004:99) argue that relations between the British government and other European donors and the government of Zimbabwe worsened as donor countries declined to support the FTLRP. According to Mandaza (2006:123) the government, despite criticisms from Western donor countries, allowed development agencies to directly support communal people. However, the government was supposed to be aware of all development activities by these development agencies. He argues that the government of Zimbabwe felt that its mandate was not supposed to be usurped by „European imperialists‟. Donors in this regard recognised the importance of smallholder agriculture as the core of the economy in southern Africa and main source of livelihood for most of the poor who remained in communal areas.
At the policy level Moyo (2005:89) notes that land was acquired compulsorily in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act (Chapter 20:10) as amended. The constitutional amendment number 16 of 2000 placed the financial obligation of paying compensation for any improvements on the acquired properties but this was never followed or implemented. The Land Acquisition Act of 1989 underwent changes to ensure conformity with the new constitutional provisions. To strengthen this, new laws and policies such as the Rural Land Occupiers (protection) Act were enacted to protect land occupiers on land not yet acquired by government, and the Farm Machinery Acquisition Act and various other guidelines facilitated land transfer. In this regard Moyo (2005:95) shows there was a policy change because in the 1980s the same occupiers of similar land were deemed illegal by the same government. Matondi (2008:99) further criticised the land reform policy by showing that despite all these legislative amendments, the land acquisition process was fraught with a number of procedural impediments.