New People, New Land and New Livelihoods: A Micro-study of Zimbabwe’s Fast-track Land Reform

Abstract

This article utilizes empirical data gathered in the Mhondoro Ngezi district of Zimbabwe to highlight how the Fast-track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) implemented in 2000, allowed landless peasants to access better quality land and other natural resources. It focuses particularly on the way in which the land reform transformed a dualistic agrarian structure inherited at independence, dominated by large-scale farms, into a tri-modal structure, in favour of landless peasants predominantly from communal areas. The article argues that the FTLRP created opportunities for landless peasants to diversify livelihoods by allowing them greater mobility and access to land and natural resources, historically confined or enjoyed by a white farmer minority under the racialized bi-modal agrarian structure. This argument is derived from empirical evidence based on a case study of 185 households resettled under A1 (villagized) schemes at the formerly white-owned Damvuri Conservancy.