Restructuring of agrarian labour relations after Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The fast track land redistribution programme generated new agrarian labour relations altering the tying of labour on the large farms to tenancy, supplemented by casual labour from the communal areas. Job losses and displacement occurred, but this is not the whole story as new and diverse sources of rural employment have emerged, including high levels of self-employment on small farms (A1) supplemented by casual employment. Large farms dependent on wage labour experience labour shortages despite the mechanisation drive. However, communal areas and A1 farmers continue to provide labour to large farms, although labour supplies are negotiated on new terms.

Keywords:

• land reform
• agrarian labour
• farm labour residential tenancy
• social reproduction

Notes

²e.g. Masiiwa and Chipungu (2004), Richardson (2005), Hellum and Derman (2004), and Scarrnechia (2006).

³The form of labour tenancy existing in Southern Africa does not entail rental payments but the residential rights of ‘labour tenants’ in the farm compounds were tied to labour supply (see Neocosmos 1993).

⁴See Sachikonye (2003), Hartnack (2007), NRC (2003), Magaramombe (2003), and Rutherford (2004).

⁵The national baseline survey was conducted in six provinces: Chipinge, Chiredzi, Goromonzi, Kwekwe, Mangwe and Zvimba districts. Follow-up visits entailed interviews with land beneficiaries, workers, extension officers and district councils in Zvimba and Goromonzi districts to get updates on developments.

⁶During the 1930s a two tier maize and livestock marketing system was introduced in which peasants received lower prices (Arrighi 1970).

⁷These included the Master and Servants Act of 1899, which treated black workers as the property of land owners, and the Native Juveniles Employment Act of 1926, which forcibly bonded unemployed blacks in the towns to LSCFs (Amanor-Wilks 1995).

⁸Sugar, cotton, wheat, soyabeans, coffee, tea, beef and dairy

⁹Hybrid seeds, pesticides and fertilisers

¹⁰e.g. irrigation.

¹¹e.g. petty trading and gold panning.

¹²See e.g. Loewenson (1992), Amanor-Wilks (1995), Tandon (2001), Rutherford (2001).

¹³The white farmers resolved disputes internally and transcended the employment contract by resolving marriage and other social disputes in the farm compound (Rutherford 2001). Many used violence in labour management (Kanyenze 2001).

¹⁴By 1995, 62percent of the national population were poor, the majority of whom resided in the communal areas where 80percent of the people were poor in comparison to 46percent in urban areas (GoZ 1998).

¹⁵Many former farm workers (73percent) preferred resettlement (GoZ/IOM 2004).

¹⁶In Masvingo Province, they were sevenpercent of the land beneficiaries (Scoones et al. 2010). The farm worker land allocations are also presented as a proportion of former farm workers as group. The GoZ/IOM (2004) estimates that 15percent of the former farm workers received land.

¹⁷Agriculture was the largest formal employer, accounting for 26percent of the wage labour force in 1999 (CSO 2000).

¹⁸To clarify, non-super exploitation refers to a situation in which wages can meet the costs of social reproduction, while in super exploitation the wages cannot meet workers' costs of social reproduction.

¹⁹Thick porridge made from maize meal.

²⁰The High Court of Zimbabwe has heard several eviction cases of former farm workers (Chambati and Magaramombe 2008).

²¹Permanent workers losing their jobs were entitled retrenchment packages deducted from the LSCF compensation for land improvements (Statutory Instrument No. 6 of 2002). However disagreements on the compensation process and delays in the legal aspects of land acquisition meant that few LSCFs had been valued (Moyo et. al.2009).

²²Between 1996 and 2000, 30percent of the funds invested in housing in the LSCFs were for farmers when they constituted only 0.2percent of the population and 70percent was devoted to the 2,000,000 people that included farm workers and their families (CSO 2001).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Walter Chambati

1I wish to acknowledge the advice received from Sam Moyo and support of AIAS researchers (Ndabezinhle Nyoni and Steven Mberi) in data collection. Helpful comments were also received from Paris Yeros, Lionel Cliffe, Ben Cousins and two anonymous reviewers.