The effects of land access on poverty in rural Zimbabwe

Between 2000 and 2002, the Zimbabwean government implemented a series of ‘fast-track’ land reforms. They transferred 9.3 million hectares of farmland owned by white farmers to state ownership for use by black farmers. This was done to end unequal land ownership between black and white people. But what effect have these reforms had on poverty?

The Zimbabwean government introduced two tenure approaches for redistributing the land transferred from white farmers. About a quarter of agricultural land was set aside for commercial farms and can be used as collateral to secure loans. The remainder was designated as family plots in Communal Areas (CAs). Users are issued with permits that can be inherited but not sold.

Research from the University of Manchester, in the UK, looks at how this process has affected land access in Zimbabwe and how this in turns affects poverty levels. The researchers focus on Svosve CA in Marondera District, northeast Zimbabwe, where livelihoods are largely based on cattle and agriculture.

Poverty levels are very high in Svosve CA. Income levels are strongly associated with access to land and the demand for land is very high. Also, many people who worked on white-owned farms lost their livelihoods and housing after land redistribution. As a result, many poorer households now depend heavily on casual agricultural work on other people's land.

Rural people’s access to land is further reduced because large areas of CA grazing land are sold to incomers to build houses and grow crops. The majority of these people are from urban backgrounds and need land because they were displaced when the government cleared informal urban settlements. This land is controlled by traditional authorities, who are entitled to a proportion of the tax revenue generated by these new settlers.

The land redistribution process took place during a severe economic crisis and this has since worsened; by 2006, annual inflation was 1000 percent and paid employment opportunities had dropped dramatically. In this context, people have used a range of strategies to acquire land:

• Some residential land in the CA is sold for money, even though this is illegal.
• Land has also been exchanged for services such as teaching, transport, credit and agricultural inputs such as fertilisers.
• Some land is rented by absentee landlords, mostly to displaced farm workers from commercial farms.

Land transactions in Svosve have treated communal land as a commodity which can be bought and sold, which goes against government policy. But the government's approach, which designates both communal and commercial areas, is at odds with the local realities of land sale, exchange and rental.

The researchers conclude:

• Poorer people with small amounts of land will struggle to escape poverty under existing land governance systems.
• Land policy debates need to acknowledge the existence of local markets for acquiring land – failing to recognise this disconnects policies from practice.

Source(s):
'Communal Tenure and Rural Poverty: reflections on land transactions in Svosve Communal Area, Zimbabwe', Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 35, by Admos Chimhowu and Philip Woodhouse, 2008
A revised version of the paper appears in Development and Change 39 (2), pages 285 to 308
‘Customary vs Private Property Rights? Dynamics and Trajectories of Vernacular Land Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa’ Journal of Agrarian Change 6 (3), pages 346 to 371, by Admos Chimhowu and Philip Woodhouse, 2006

Funded by: Economic and Social Research Council; Global Poverty Research Group

id21 Research Highlight: 14 December 2008

Further Information:
Admos Chimhowu
Institute for Development Policy and Management
School of Environment and Development
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
UK

Tel: +44 161 2750416
Fax: +44 161 2738829
Contact the contributor: admos.chimhowu@manchester.ac.uk

Institute for Development Policy and Management, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, UK

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