New farmers in Zimbabwe are said to be doing well considering they have had little support
'There is little doubt that as long as land is reserved on a racial basis there will be ready arguments available to the agitator … It is well recognised that the word 'land' is very often one of the slogans in revolutionary movements and it has a popular emotional appeal," warned the Second Report of the Select Committee on the Resettlement of Natives in 1960. And so it came to pass.
"Were there to be an African government in this country — and indeed that seems inevitable, and very soon — and if the present laws which have been enacted and applied to create and preserve privilege, if these were retained and applied in reverse against the European, what a protest there would be! Thousands of whites could be driven from their homes and farms without compensation," warned Catholic Bishop Donal Lamont in his speech from the dock in 1976 when he was convicted of treating guerrillas in church hospitals. And so it came to pass.
Lamont hoped "Europeans might possibly be treated better than Africans were". But the new leaders had learned their lessons well and evicted white farmers without compensation. And, as the bishop predicted, what a protest there has been!
In the biggest land reform in movement Africa, 6 000 white farmers have been replaced by 245 000 Zimbabwean farmers. Some settled in the 1980s, but most since 2000. These are primarily ordinary poor people who have become more productive farmers.
The change was inevitably disruptive at first, but production is increasing rapidly. Agricultural production is now returning to the 1990s level, and resettlement farmers already grow 40% of the country's tobacco and 49% of its maize.
As Barry Floyd noted in his PhD thesis more than 50 years ago: "Tobacco in its growth pays scant attention to the pigment of the plowman's skin." As we've said earlier, it takes a generation for farmers to master their new land. White farmers, especially war veterans, had extensive support in the 1950s — and, as we saw, only a third became successful.
Zimbabwe's first land reform, in the 1980s under willing seller, willing buyer, where the former colonisers kept the best land but there was some initial support, the new farmers, on average, did well, increasing production and reducing poverty.
"Resettled farmers were found to be more productive, on average, than communal farmers," according to long-term research by Bill Kinsey, and there is "enormous scope for many farmers to catch up to the best farmers in the sample".
The fast-track land reform in 2000 was largely self-funded with little support, but fast-track farmers had the enthusiasm of occupiers and they had finally taken the best land.
On average, the fast-track farmers are doing well, raising their living standards and increasing production, and over the next decade can be expected to continue growing — the best are doing very well, and a middle group is still catching up.
The British colonisers developed a dual agriculture system, with most people on smallholdings and a privileged group having larger farms. And they racialised the land, defining some land as "European" and some as "African". On the surface, the dual system and racial land definitions have continued since independence. But beneath the language of "white farmers" and "large-scale farms" there have been changes.
In terms of farm size, Zimbabweans improved on their teachers — the small farms are bigger, and the large farms are smaller — leading to better land use and increased commercial production.
Similarly, the colonial shorthand of white and black farmers is still used, but in reality neither group is homogeneous. White farmers became famous because some were highly profitable and productive.
Yet, as a group, at independence, white farmers were using less than one-third of their land, and most were not doing very well — one-third were insolvent and one-third were only breaking even. The white minority fought a brutal war to maintain its privilege and power, yet after independence, many in the white community took places in the new Zimbabwe.
There are still white farmers such as Keith Campbell who have built good relationships with land-reform farmers, and other white Zimbabweans are involved in agribusiness.
On the side of the land-reform farmers, there are the hugely successful farmers such as Fanuel Mutandiro and Esther Makwara, who use every corner of their land. There are vacant plots and farmers who are doing very poorly. And there are many in between, struggling to invest and grow, sometimes supported by contract farming.
The decision to maintain a large-scale farming sector accessible only to the better-off remains controversial, and some of those farms have been given to influential people. Yet even the so-called cronies are not homogeneous — some are sitting on the land hoping to sell or lease it, whereas others are highly productive and hope to get rich from farming. Land reform can never be neat or simple anywhere in the world.
Land is a finite resource that is taken away from one group and given to another. And land reform usually takes place at times of economic and social stress or transition. Intense political and social conflicts are inevitable — from the level of setting goals and priorities down to the distribution of bags of fertiliser.
These debates will continue in Zimbabwe, and many issues remain unresolved. But it is essential to step back from the loud, angry and continuing media and political confrontations to talk to the people who have land — the actual farmers.
The most striking memory of the research for this book is how proud the fast-track farmers are of their new farms. They were anxious to take us around, insisting that we see every field and hear in detail about the new tobacco barn. They were pleased with their production. These farmers insisted on giving us something, and each day we returned home with a carload of pumpkins.
Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land is published by Jacana.