From time immemorial, over 90 percent of Africans in the communal lands depended on agriculture for much of their livelihoods, writes Dr Felix Muchemwa in his book The Struggle for Land in Zimbabwe (1890-2010) that The Patriot is serialising.

THE World Bank introduced the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in Zimbabwe in 1990 (Scoones et al, 2010: p.25) and the programme came with a neo-liberal agrarian reform structure that was totally against any nationalisation of land or compulsory acquisition of land by the state. (Moyo, 2000a)
The result was that between 1990 and 1996, only 20 000 families were resettled (Scoones et al, 2010: p.18) and without doubt, it meant that after 17 years of independence, Phase One of the Land Reform Programme had totally failed to address the critical issue of land redistribution in Zimbabwe. (Hungwe, p.149)
Lapse of the Lancaster House
Agreement and the beginning of
constitutional amendments
By 1990, the land re-distribution programme had practically stalled. (Hungwe, p.147)
The European settler-land owners had become increasingly unwilling to release land to the Government and whatever land they offered was useless for agricultural purposes. (Hungwe, p.148)
On the other hand, nearly 70 percent of the African population still lived on the barren land they had been driven into after the First Chimurenga of 1896 (Hodder-Williams, 1967: p.46) and it must be acknowledged that these Tribal Trust Lands or Communal Lands were largely characterised by poor sandy soil. (Hungwe, p.146)
And, it also had to be recognised that from time immemorial, over 90 percent of Africans in the communal lands had depended on agriculture for much of their livelihoods. (Mehretu and Mutambirwa, p.129)
There was, therefore, an urgent need for the Lancaster House Constitution to be amended as per time schedule agreed upon at the Lancaster House Conference in October 1979. (Lancaster House Conference Paper No.19, 1979)
Constitutional Amendment Bill
On December 12 1990, at the lapse of the Lancaster House Agreement, the Parliament of Zimbabwe passed the Constitutional Amendment Bill by a majority of 113 to three.
The Amendment allowed the Government not to pay compensation for land in foreign currency and to stop the right to externalise such currency.
Also amended was the right to pay ‘prompt, adequate compensation’.
This was amended to … payment of ‘fair compensation, within a reasonable time’ from the time of acquisition. (Moyo, p.154)
Land Acquisition Act of 1992
To make the constitutional amendments effective, the Land Acquisition Act of 1992 was passed by Parliament in 1992. (Moyo, p.153)
The Act contained clauses for compulsory acquisition of land (Stiff, 2000: p.291) as well as clauses imposing land tax, reduction of farm sizes, regulations on farm ownership and regulations forbidding foreigners from acquiring land in Zimbabwe. (Hungwe, p.148)
The legal changes had the effect of bringing down the prices of land, but interestingly, even with the prices now down, no resettlement money was made available by the British Government (Hungwe, p.148), to the extent that between 1990 and 1997, only a pitiful additional 800 000 hectares of land was acquired and redistributed (Hungwe, p.149) to less than 100 000 families. (Muir-Leresche, p.100)
This brought the total land acquired for resettlement in the 17 years of Zimbabwe’s independence to 3 500 000 hectares and the beneficiaries to a total of 71 000 families, of whom 93 percent were resettled on the A1 model scheme. (Hungwe p.149)
Phase Two of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme: November 1997 to April 2000
In November 1997, the Government pushed forward the ambitious five-year Phase Two of the Land Reform Programme.
The target was the compulsory acquisition of 1 471 farms totalling 5 000 000 hectares (Scoones et al, 2010: p.20) for redistribution to not less than 91 000 peasant families in order to meet the original target of 162 000 families, with 71 000 having already been resettled in the 1980 to 1997 Phase One of the Land Reform Programme. (Makadho, 2006: p.171)
Over 80 percent of identified land was either underutilised or oversized farms. (Moyo, 1998)
Just 200 of these farms could have delivered over 2 000 000 hectares of land, of which 90 percent was only sparsely grazed by cattle and wildlife.
One multi-national farm alone held 25 farms amounting to over 500 000 hectares of land which were mostly not cropped. (Moyo, 1998)
Listing these farms for acquisition was clearly justified since the farms were underutilised and their acquisition by Government would have had very little impact on food production. (Matondi-Hungwe, 2006: p.72)
The budget for buying the 5 000 000 hectares of land was ZW$40 billion
(US$6 billion).
Over five years, this amounted to ZW$8billion to buy 1 000 000 hectares to resettle up to 30 000 peasant families per year.(Matondi-Hungwe, 2006: p.73)
The Government of Zimbabwe committed ZW$16 million (US$4 million).
For assistance with the huge balance, the Government then convened an International Donors Conference which 45 international and local donors registered to attend. (The Herald, September 9 1998, p.11)
Not unexpectedly, the European settler-farmers contested the acquisition of 804 of the farms in the Administrative Court, leaving the Government with 567 farms to resettle people. (Makadho, 2006: p.172)
Also from the same targeted 1 471 farms, 510 farms were delisted due to incorrect listing.
In time, the number of court challenges rose to 841 farms (Scoones et al, 2010: p.20) and by the middle of the year 2000, only 85 uncontested farms covering 168 263 hectares would be available to resettle just 4 697 peasant families. (Makadho, 2006: p.172)