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Abstract
Zimbabwe's recent fast-track land reform was redistributive, but it retained significant enclaves of large-scale agro-industrial estates owned by transnational, domestic and state capital, despite unfulfilled popular and domestic elite demands for land. Such estates were encouraged by the state to produce agro-fuel (ethanol from sugar), sugar, tea, coffee, timber and citrus, with wildlife ranching for domestic and export markets, alongside expanded small food producers. This outcome reflects the unresolved contradictions of seeking autonomous development in the context of sanctions, domestic political polarisation and declining agricultural production, while promoting reintegration into broader world markets. Neoliberal policies replaced dirigisme by 2008 to promote stabilisation and agricultural recovery but with limited impact. Foreign agricultural investment in Zimbabwe is nonetheless atypical of the current neoliberal land grabbing in Africa, since Zimbabwe reversed past inequalities and retains some state autonomy, and residual land concentration remains contested.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for the research support provided by Ndabezinhle Nyoni, Walter Chambati, Charity Dangwa, Kingstone Mujeyi and Dumisani Siziba. Funding from the Norwegian Embassy and CIDA enabled the research.
Notes
Eight of these estates comprising 52,264 ha were leasehold lands belonging to Communal Areas.
Nine European countries held 65% of these farms while US nationals, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Africans held 33%.
Notable are the Openheimer, Nicolle and Moxon families, and Charter Estates' families (Moyo Citation1998).
Rural Land Occupiers (Protection from Eviction) Act, 2001; Land Acquisition Act (Chapter 20:10): Land Acquisition Amendment No. 1 of 2004. Constitutional Amendment Act No. 17/2005.
Sugar contributed 1.4% gross domestic product, US$65 million foreign exchange earnings and employed 25,000 in 2005 (European Union Citation2007).
Two sugar millers-cum-planters at their peak in 2002 produced 580,005 tonnes of sugar.
NERC meeting minutes, 8 May 2006, held in Munhumutapa Building, Harare.
The National Biodiesel Production Programme (GoZ Citation2007) promotes agro-fuel production from jatropha for the remaining annual agro-fuel requirements on 120,000 ha of small producers' land. A total of 60,000 ha have been planted; interview with E. Mushaka, Noczim, 2010.
