Tobacco, contract farming, and agrarian change in Zimbabwe

Blasio Mavedzenge,Ian Scoones,Chrispen Sukume,Felix Murimbarimba

doi:10.1111/joac.12210

Blasio Mavedzenge, Ian Scoones + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12210

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Abstract

AbstractThe growth of smallholder tobacco production since 2000 has been one of the big stories of Zimbabwe's post–land reform experience. Yet the implications for agrarian change, and the consequences for new relations between farmers, the state, and agribusiness capital have rarely been discussed. The paper reports on work carried out in the Mvurwi area of Mazowe district in Zimbabwe with a sample of 220 A1 (smallholder) farmers and 100 former farmworkers resident in compounds on the same farms. By going beyond a focus on operational and business dimensions of contract farming, the paper concludes with reflections on the implications for understanding agrarian relations and social differentiation in those areas of Zimbabwe where tobacco growing is now significant, with lessons more broadly on the political economy of contract farming, and the integration of agribusiness capital following land reform.

Highlights

Tobacco production has become central to patterns of accumulation by small‐scale farmers in some new land reform areas in Zimbabwe, in the wetter Highveld areas
Scoones (2015) highlights a contested process of both accumulation from above and below, and argues that this is playing out in different ways in different parts of the country. This paper explores this dynamic in one area in the Highveld, where land reform has been extensive, and where tobacco has come to dominate smallholder production
We focus on small‐scale A1 farmers, some of whom are engaging in contract farming, and explore the contrasting fortunes of the compound‐based farmworkers living in the same area

Summary

Introduction

Tobacco production has become central to patterns of accumulation by small‐scale farmers in some new land reform areas in Zimbabwe, in the wetter Highveld areas. Based on a study carried out in Mvurwi area, Mazowe district, Mashonaland Central province between 2013 and 2015, this paper seeks an understanding of the way in which tobacco production generates opportunities for “accumulation from below” by certain groups of farmers, asking who wins and who loses from the major reconfiguration of the agrarian landscape due to land reform.

Results

Conclusion