As part of our analysis of the story of land reform over 25 years, we have also been looking at communal areas that are nearby our A1 sites. These are where many people who invaded the farms and were granted land in the A1 areas originally came from. We are interested in comparing the fortunes of the two types of land use. Of course, such comparisons are fraught with dangers as so many variables impinge. However, having worked in both A1 and land reform areas over time, it is very clear that there are many differences. Our job in this pair of blogs is to ask why and what are the implications?
By Ian Scoones
Our communal area sites are selected villages in Chiweshe in Mazowe, Khhttps://www.thezimbabwean.co/author/ian-scoones/umalo East in Matobo, Serima in Gutu and Gutu South, neighbouring our Wondedzo sites in Masvingo district. In all sites we have recently conducted a household survey (currently being analysed), but to complement this we also carried out ‘success rankings’ in all sites, as reported in an earlier blog. These workshops were aimed at creating a locally-defined stratification of the sample population, as well as a discussion of the criteria that different people define as ‘success’.
The rankings were discussed in the earlier blog, with the criteria for different success ranks highlighted. This blog picks up on this analysis with an assessment of ‘transitions’ in those sites where we held success ranks earlier (all except Chiweshe). Transitions look at movements between the three success ranks (increase, decrease and decline) between two time periods, 2017 and 2025. We can compare these patterns of transition with our A1 data to get an indication of how people have fared over time, with what patterns of accumulation, stasis or decline.
Limits to success in communal areas
The overall story of these rankings is that across communal areas, people are concentrated in the lowest rank. There are real limits to success, and relatively few livelihood opportunities. Life is a struggle and there are gender and generational dynamics at play.
As workshop participants explained, these constraints are because of lack of resources; the limited flow of remittances from sons and daughters working in precarious jobs abroad; low agricultural outputs due to small areas of land and poor soils; demographic changes meaning many households were occupied by old people or had been abandoned due to death. Social challenges were highlighted as hampering progress. Factors included the prevalence of drug use affecting young people (mostly mutoriro, a cheap and highly intoxicating and addictive concoction) and a lack of community cohesion resulting in regulations not being followed.
Before delving into the results of the success rank transitions analysis in the next blog, here is a recap of some of the key characteristics of our different communal area sites. Compared to A1 areas, there are some real constraints.
Masvingo province sites: Serima and Gutu South
The two sites have many similar characteristics. Like many communal areas, the amount of agricultural land cultivated has shrunk significantly over time. This is in part due to lack of labour, but also because of poor soils and repeated droughts. People judge it is not worth wasting effort on the outfields if they can concentrate on the homefield, the small area immediately around the homestead. Here more intensive production can take place, with less labour input. Managing such areas is more convenient for women who are also managing the home, looking after small children or old/sick relatives. This shift to gardening rather than farming has been encouraged by support for no-till pfumvudza by both government and NGOs. The provision of seed and fertilizer for pits dug in these areas allows production to be increasingly concentrated, but with higher yields on smaller areas.
One feature of both these communal area sites is what people refer to as the ‘donor syndrome, the reliance on NGOs for projects. Most such projects are community projects, often involving groups of women, and are focused on gardens, broilers, sewing and so on. People gain resources from such projects as well as some benefits from participating, but it means people are reliant on such inputs and always on the lookout for donor support. It was telling that when carrying out our rankings in the communal area sites, despite our repeated assertions that this was only a research exercise, people wanted to be put in lower ranks in the hope that the ranking would deliver some aid from an NGO. Even private lobbying by clearly well-connected and relatively prosperous people pressured us to change ranks for this reason!
The main contrast between the two communal area sites in Masvingo province related to access to remittances. In Gutu South, people commented that their sons and daughters sent limited remittances home as they were in precarious jobs in South Africa, earning little money. Remittances were still important, but did not involve large sums, especially as jobs in Zimbabwe were not as available or as well remunerated as they had been in the past. By contrast, in Serima, children living away from the farm were on average better off. This was likely the result of investments in education in this area, which has good mission schools nearby. These often highly educated children were in better jobs abroad, and beyond South Africa including the UK.
Extensive agriculture has declined in these sites, with homefield gardening becoming the main source of subsistence. However, such production is insufficient, and people rely on remittances and external aid through projects and cash and food handouts, although depending on the sites and the level of education, types of jobs and location of migrants’ remittance flows may be very different.
Matobo district site: Khumalo East
Khumalo communal area site in Matobo district is in a much lower potential area, where droughts prevent successful crop production and in the past people relied largely on cattle. This has changed, as the space for grazing has shrunk. This is partly due to land reform, as areas that once were three-tier farms with collective grazing made available to communal area livestock keepers are now private farms, with communal area cattle kept out.
Located in a strip of land between these farms (including also A1 and A2 land reform farms) and the mountains and national park, there is great pressure on resources. Young people complain that there is no land to farm and particularly to graze and that it is impossible to establish a home through agriculture in the area. Their parents in turn grumble that they are lazy and do not invest time and labour in ‘feeding the soil’ and that they resort to drugs and hang around at townships doing nothing. Those who leave the area are often not highly educated and engaged in ‘border jumping’ to South Africa, and parents comment that remittances are not forthcoming as their meagre incomes get ‘eaten’, with girlfriends and drink consuming anything that might have been sent home. These contrasting generational perceptions have of course always existed, but the divisions across generations are perhaps more stark these days, with the possibilities of accumulation from farming/livestock rearing contracting.
Due to these constraints, people in this area have widely adopted broiler chicken production, linked to the contract arrangement with Peter Cunningham’s nearby farm. Close connections with Maleme ranch and church have long existed and have become closer through the contract farming support. In addition, just as in the Masvingo province sites, NGO projects – again as groups – are very common, and there is a wide expectation that any external intervention will bring donor resources. expectation. Despite the number of ‘community’ projects, people complain of a lack of cohesion in the villages, with people not following long-established rules, for example about grazing time for cattle. The NGO projects are seen instrumentally as ways of getting support through cash and food transfers as part of ‘social protection’ programmes. These may exist for a short window when the project is funded. There is little expectation that such transfers and associated livelihood projects (graduation efforts in the aid lingo) will improve people’s lot and overall community well-being in the longer term.
Despite external interventions, notably the broiler contracting projects, people in Khumalo East have few options, and accumulation through agriculture and livestock keeping is impossible. Reliance on remittances is important, but flows of funds are small and intermittent, meaning survival at home is crucial. Not surprisingly, many migrate away from the area, leaving an older, often female population in the villages.
Mazowe district site: Chiweshe
Although we did not carry out the transition analysis for Chiweshe communal area villages due to the absence of ranking data from an earlier period, it is worth highlighting some of the differences. This is a higher potential area where community solidarity is relatively strong. The political connections in Chiweshe and links to areas beyond are important in reinforcing this, and a sense of Chiweshe identity is important for many.
There are relatively fewer NGO projects and much less of a sense of dependence on outside support here compared to our other sites. Instead of seeking employment abroad, young people are abandoning education and returning home to farm. A small plot of tobacco can generate more income than a poorly paid job in Harare or even in South Africa. With investment in small plots then young people seek to buy motorbikes and engage in transport businesses in parallel to farming, generating a reasonable living in the process. Not all young people are so enterprising, however, and the drug epidemic in the rural areas ruins many lives.
Land has become available in Chiweshe for the same reasons as in our other sites. Ageing populations, declining labour, poor soils and a focus on homestead plots and no-till pfumvudza agriculture all contribute to the releasing of land. However, this does not remain abandoned as in other areas. Instead, there is a large in-flow of people migrating to this area, whether from drought-stricken communal areas in Mount Darwin and Muzarabani or former farmworkers abandoning compounds in the new resettlement areas. Many such people can be found in the mountains surrounding villages, cultivating small patches of land. Others seek land through leasing, and much land is leased out to in-comers. Not all communal area farmers approve. Some say that such intensive use across all areas depletes the soil and results in deforestation, with no land being fallowed for renewal, something that is essential especially if cultivating tobacco. Equally leasing arrangements are frequently informal or confirmed through often dubious routes, making later eviction very difficult.
Our Chiweshe village sites therefore feel very different, with potentials evident, but extreme crowding of the area limits this.
Structural poverty limits opportunities
The communal areas offer few opportunities. People are structurally poor with limited access to resources. For many, they are simply too poor to succeed. Outside Chiweshe, local economies are stagnant with few opportunities. This means that accumulation possibilities from local production are severely constrained, if not impossible, unless in a high potential area where tobacco income can be generated. Reliance on external sources of support, notably remittances and some (rather selective and limited) food/cash transfers from aid agencies just about sustain livelihoods for most.
However, there is differentiation within this generalized (rather dismal) picture. Some are able to do better, through capturing resources from outside, while others hang in through diversification strategies, even if most languish in the lowest wealth rank, with limited prospects. To analyse changes over time, the next blog explores the transitions between success groups in the Masvingo, Gutu and Matobo district sites, and compares these with nearby A1 areas. This begins to address the question – has land reform made a difference?
This blog has been written by Tapiwa Chatikobo and Ian Scoones, with inputs from Felix Murimbarimba (who facilitated the workshops). Prudence Hove (Chiweshe), Sydney Jones and Guidance Gobvu (Kumalo East), Kennedy Suwayi (Gutu South) and Manika Manaka (Serima) helped to coordinate the workshops. This blog first appeared on Zimbabweland.
