Re-inventing the underprivileged irrigation tenant? A socio-historical perspective on irrigation rights in Zimbabwe as defined by the 2021 Irrigable Areas (Control) regulations

ABSTRACT

Both colonial and post-colonial administrations in Zimbabwe identified irrigation as important for climate-proofing the agriculture sector, and put measures to this end. The 2021 Regulations are the most recent, but are based on colonial-era 1970 Regulations that deprived the majority Black farmers of their irrigation rights. The regulations, just like their predecessor, espouse the notion of irrigation as a privilege. This raises the question whether they provide a solid basis for restoring irrigation rights of Black farmers, and enhancing the rights of all irrigators in the country. If fully implemented, the regulations will reduce all irrigators to underprivileged irrigation tenants.

KEYWORDS:

• Irrigation rights
• irrigation tenant
• smallholder irrigation
• statization
• Zimbabwe

Acknowledgments

I thank Engineer Bezzel Chitsungo for making available a hard copy of the 1970 Regulations. I also wish to thank Tinashe Nyabako for his assistance with word cloud analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).