By Andrew Meldrum
Small and wiry, Ephraim Nyakujara, 76, peers at his wilted maize field and complains about the sparse rainfall in Zimbabwe's Chiendambuya Communal Lands, 120 miles northeast of Harare:
"This land is too dry and rocky, it can't grow crops," he says. "Even in years of good rains we don't get good harvests."
Nyakujara fondly recalls the land where his family lived when he was a young man. "It was beautiful land. We could grow everything there. There were wet spots where we could even grow rice," he says, "But after the Rhodesians moved us to this land, many of our crops failed. Even now it is hard to grow things here."
Nyakujara's hair and beard are grey and his face is deeply lined, but his eyes are sharp and his speech is decisive. In 1945, he explains, white colonial authorities (Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, was a British colony until 1965, when Ian Smith's white minority government unilaterally declared its independence from Britain) moved his family and hundreds of others from their traditional land in what is now called the Headlands area.
Not a shilling
"Many of us resisted, but the police burned our homes and fields; they destroyed our property and then just moved us," remembers Nyakujara. "They dispersed our people. Some were taken east, others west and south." Asked if people were paid compensation for their land, Nyakujara laughs bitterly. "Nothing, not a shilling, not a penny," he says. "They just dumped us here and we had to develop everything from scratch, Even today I want to get our traditional land back."
Nyakujara's desire for his family's lands is matched by that of scores of thousands of Zimbabweans. Thirteen years after formal independence - granted by Britain after the collapse of Smith's white minority government - President Robert Mugabe's government is launching a second phase of land redistribution to satisfy those desires. The way the government acquires land and redevelops it for small-scale farming will be tremendously important for Zimbabwe's economy and have far-reaching political and social implications.
Ephraim Nyakujara and thousands of other Zimbabweans were forced off their ancestral lands between 1910 and 1970, Today that land, covering 11 million hectares and representing 40 per cent of Zimbabwe's total land mass. is owned by 4 300 large-scale commercial farmers, nearly all of them white. The commercially owned land is the country's best for farming, with the most fertile soil and highest average rainfalls.
More than seven million mostly-black Zimbabweans remain crowded onto the Communal Areas. which cover about 14 million hectares. The Communal Areas are lands the white Rhodesians did not want for them- selves, but used as "reserves" for the uprooted black populations. Today, the Communal Areas are densely populated and generally suffer from overuse.
To right the historical wrong of the colonial seizure of the African people's land has been a priority of Robert Mugabe's regime since it came to power in April 1980.
The loss of their land was the burning grievance that brought the country's black peasants to support Mugabe's nationalist fighters in the vicious 14-year war against the Smith regime. Once in government, Mugabe promised that 162 000 families would be resettled on previously white-owned land. But 13 years after independence only 55 000 families have been resettled on farming projects. which have not been successful. This did little to quench Zimbabweans' desire for better land.
Confronted by unpopularity in the urban areas, Mugabe's ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is counting on support from the rural areas, where 70 per cent of Zimbabwe's 10 million people live, for an election win in 1995. To re-invigorate enthusiasm for his party in the rural areas, Mugabe has returned to the land issue. His government has pledged to revive land reform by purchasing five million hectares - nearly half the land owned by commercial farmers - to be redistributed to black smallholders.
For the renewed land redistribution, the Mugabe government altered Zimbabwe's constitution and passed special legislation. During the first period of land reform in the 1980s, the government was restricted by the British-drafted constitution to purchasing land on a willing seller/willing buyer basis. The government could only purchase farms that were for sale, and had to negotiate a price at market value. The result was that the government was unable to buy the farms best-suited for resettlement, because they were not up for sale.
New legislation
For its second drive at land reform, the Mugabe government is armed with new legislation which empowers it to forcibly buy any land it wants and to set its own price for that land. The Land Acquisition Act was unanimously passed by Zimbabwe's Parliament in March 1992.
The day before the Act was passed saw tensions between white farmers and the government rise to levels of antagonism not seen since independence. To a lesser extent, the controversy increased tensions between Zimbabwe's blacks and whites in general.
Much of the bad feeling over the Act stemmed from the lack of communication. For more than a year, there has been little direct contact between the government and the wealthy, well-organized Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), which represents the white farmers. In the last weeks before the Act's passage, the CFU mounted a media campaign against the government bill, including full-page newspaper advertisements and saturation television spots.
But the last-minute barrage backfired. Zimbabwe's black majority resented the white farmers' obviously costly efforts to stymie the government's: plans. Because so many Zimbabweans have relatives who, like Nyakujara, were thrown off their ancestral land by Rhodesian authorities, public opinion is strongly in favor of renewed land redistribution. The white farmers were identified as defenders of colonial inequities and their case became deeply unpopular. Widespread support for redistribution was reflected in Parliament's unanimous vote for the land bill, with even white members and the opposition casting yes votes.:
Large commercial farmers were joined in their opposition only by diplomats representing the Western industrial countries, who objected to a clause which allows the government to set its own prices for land, and which prevents farmers from appealing to the courts if they believe the price is too low. Some lawyers advise it is unconstitutional to deny the large landowners the right of appeal, adding that the Act could be ruled invalid by the Supreme Court.
Diplomats from the industrialized countries warn that Zimbabwe could lose financial aid if land is forcibly purchased at less than market prices. "It is completely against the standards of international law, any compulsory purchase must at least have judicial arbitration of the price," said one indignant envoy.
"Where were the standards of international law 40 years ago, when the land was taken from our people?" retorted Reg Austin, a lawyer who is also a member of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF.
The white farmers are on stronger ground in opposing the Act when arguing that they make a crucial contribution to Zimbabwe's economy. Tobacco grown mostly on their farms is the country's largest single earner of much-needed foreign currency, bringing US$800 million in 1992. Their cotton, tea, coffee, macadamia nuts, roses and tropical fruits are other important export crops. Commercial farms also produce 80 per cent of the food marketed in Zimbabwe, and are the nation's biggest employer with more than 500 000 laborers. Including workers' families, an estimated two million Zimbabweans depend on the commercial farms. Farm owners argue that they support more people than would be possible with the resettlement schemes.
Most commercial farms are efficient and highly productive, making a vital contribution to Zimbabwe's ability to feed itself, The Mugabe government will have to tread carefully to ensure the land - whoever farms it - will maintain this productivity.
A wish to prosper
Zimbabwe's white farmers haven't thrown in the towel. For the most part, they've prospered in the years since independence - and would like to continue doing so. Under the Act, half will be able to stay on the land, as the government plans only to buy 50 per cent of it. Of those whose land is purchased, some will be able to fall back on other family-owned farms, some will manage to buy new farms, while many will have to look elsewhere.
Neighboring Zambia is desperately trying to revitalize its large-scale farming and is offering incentives like low-cost loans and liberal access to foreign exchange, which look very appealing to Zimbabweans.
The big question remaining is: how will the Mugabe government actually carry out land redistribution?
Little action was taken in 1992 because of the severe drought which ravaged all of southern Africa and forced the government to focus on providing emergency food relief to rural people in the Communal Areas. At one point, the government announced it intended to buy 35 farms in eastern Manicaland Province to resettle peasants displaced by a new dam. But many of the owners put forward convincing cases that their farms provided the nearby city of Mutare with essential dairy products and vegetables, and the government reversed its decision. In the end just 10, largely underutilized farms were purchased and the prices offered were reasonable. The government and commercial farmers agreed in future to meet in committees to determine what farms would be suitable for government buy out.
But controversy swirled up again in April of this year with the announcement by Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Rural Resettlement Kumbirai Kangai that the government would buy 70 farms covering 190 000 hectares.; Commercial farmers quickly complained that many of the farms designated for purchase are highly productive, and charged the government wasn't following the land committees' advice.
"Our committees have identified many underutilized farms," said CFU Director David Hasluck. "If the government would follow our suggestions, we could accommodate them with the land they need."
But 190000 hectares is less than four per cent of the five million ha goal and, when asked, Hasluck said commercial farmers could not amicably provide that much land for government buyout.
Even though white farmers are opposed to the five million ha goal, the diplomatic corps has been noticeably quiet about the latest plans. Even governments which have been sympathetic to the commercial growers' interests in the past now appear to accept that further resettlement cannot be stopped.
"We are very concerned about the land issue," said one Western diplomat. "We'd like any redistribution of land to be done fairly, with fair prices paid. Whatever influence we have would be wasted in making public pronouncements for or against land resettlement."
Fall in productivity feared
Farmers, diplomats, economists and government officials are all worried about the mechanics of redeveloping purchased land for smaller-scale farming. First, the government will have to find funds to buy the farms. and then the money to redevelop them for resettlement - estimated at three times the purchase price. Zimbabwe's experience in redeveloping 3.3 million hectares since 1980 provided ample evidence that resettlement can be costly. as well as lead to a drop in productivity.
The hard lessons of the first land reform effort were spelled out in a report released in March by the Auditor General, A.E. Hand;
"There is gross underutilization of land in resettlement schemes, especially in the cooperative schemes," stated the report. "The government has not reached its objective of reducing land pressure in the Communal Areas....Resettlement alone cannot achieve government's objective of reducing land pressure in the Communal Areas. Alternative means of alleviating population pressure in the Communal Areas and improving the standard of living there, for example, industrialization, should be speeded up."
The auditor general found political interference had greatly hindered the efficiency of both land acquisition and the process of resettling people. The report recommended that successful and well-trained farmers should be selected for resettlement. in contrast to the government's previous policy of selecting the poorest, the landless, or those with political connections.
The auditor general concluded that resettled farmers should be allowed to buy their land, to encourage them to make long-term investments in it. An added benefit would be that the government would thus recoup some of the funds spent on purchasing and redevelopment. Such suggestions directly contradict the socialist principles the Mugabe government tried to promote in the 1980s. But the undeniable failure of many resettlement schemes and the fact that the government has embarked on new, market-oriented policies indicate new approaches to resettlement may be tried this time.
In recent years, Zimbabwean officials visited Malaysia to learn how that country - also a former British colony - efficiently redistributed its land on a commercial basis. They found the Malaysian scheme had entailed a daunting amount of planning and spending, but regained a significant amount of the expenditure by having the resettled farmers pay off the costs over a 20-year period. Most significantly, the land remained very productive.
Zimbabwe's resettlement officials admit cooperatives have been a dismal failure, with many participants deserting the ventures despite the availability of good soil and rainfall. Not only have planners recommended scrapping the cooperatives, they've suggested that resettled farmers be allowed to buy their plots. Currently, resettled farmers are only granted permits, which allow them to farm the land for 10 years.
If government were to let resettled farmers purchase their 12-ha plots over a period of 20 years, as in Malaysia. it would recoup some of the funds spent to buy out the whites, as well as give peasant farmers an incentive for development.
Kenya's land redistribution provides another comparison. Resettlement there was a smaller effort. involving 430 000 ha to Zimbabwe's 3.3 million, but it was structured so the new settler could buy the plot. This was to give the farmer incentive to develop the land. (Critics charge that wealthy landowners soon bought up much of this resettled land, and the small farmers were once again landless.)
New policy urged
The Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU), representing 500 000 small- to mid-scale black farmers, is urging the government to design new, more effective resettlement policies.
"We strongly recommend that newly acquired land should be resettled by qualified farmers who have demonstrated beyond doubt that their only constraint is shortage of land," says ZFU President Gary Magadzire,
Magadzire himself is a successful farmer who now cultivates a substantial holding. "Once farmers are selected from the Communal Areas, this will give those overcrowded lands some breathing space," said Magadzire, who agrees with the opinion that resettlement alone can't solve Zimbabwe's problem of overcrowded rural areas.
"The government must put plenty of funds into Agritex (the agricultural extension service) so it will be able to replan communal areas, as well as the resettlement areas," he added.
ZFU has also urged the government to sell plots to resettled farmers, rather than repeat the earlier scheme of allowing them to farm land only under licences that had to be renewed. Only when farmers own land outright and can pass it on to their heirs will they put in the investment needed to develop a farm to its full! potential, Magadzire argues.
"We'd like all Zimbabwe's farmers to have a common purpose," he said. "We would like the land to be for farmers, not for blacks or whites, but for our community of all farmers. The commercial farmers have a great deal of knowledge and experience which was denied us during the colonial era. By working beside each other we can learn. We should be partners. By staying separate we are perpetuating what we fought against."
Magadzire called for the government to promote "resettlement policies that will sustain Zimbabwe's agricultural productivity, because we cannot afford to waste our land. We only have 39 million hectares in the country and our population is growing at a rapid pace. We must face up to the fact that we do not have enough land to employ such a high percentage of our population in farming.
"We must build up agriculturally based industries, which will add value to our produce and will provide employment. I just attended · the opening of an enterprise that will produce seeds for farmers, for example. We should establish presses to make sunflower oil, processing plants to make juice from our fruits, dehydrating plants for our tomatoes, There are many projects to develop."
If the Mugabe government listens to advice from men as enthusiastic and practical as Magadzire, it may well abandon its socialist farm policies in favor of resettlement schemes that offer incentives to farmers. Only if pragmatism fosters industrious tillers of the soil, both black and white, can Zimbabwe be the winner.
Andrew Meldrum is a journalist in Harare, Zimbabwe.
