Command Agriculture and Food Security: An Interrogation of State Intervention in the Post-Fast Track Land Redistribution Era in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Command agriculture is a contract farming scheme necessitated by land redistribution that ruptured Zimbabwe’s sources of resilience, distorted credit access, heightened tenure insecurity, and spiked vulnerability to droughts. Using qualitative analysis of extant literature, this article rationalizes the program’s nobility of cause but argues that the program alone cannot revamp agriculture. Notwithstanding how the program has evolved, revamping agriculture also encompasses policies that address fiscal prudence and macroeconomic resilience. Equally important is agricultural training that fosters skills and technologies that are not only climate-responsive but also meet the demands of the constantly evolving agrarian value chain.