The political debates about the rights and wrongs of Zimbabwe’s land reform continue to occupy many. The tired, old obsession about how the land was taken and the associated focus on so-called ‘cronies’ persists, despite much evidence to suggest that … Continue reading → …
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ZimbabweLand
Commercialising agriculture in Zimbabwe: new research on the political economy of agricultural development
This is the fourth blog in a series summarising new research on Zimbabwe’s land reform. In this blog, I look at newly published material on agricultural commercialisation and the shifting political economy of command politics and capitalist expansion. The land … Continue reading → …
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Changing ideas of belonging and identity in post-land reform Zimbabwe
This is the third in a short blog series on Zimbabwe research published recently. The theme of belonging and identity in the post-land reform setting has attracted a lot of research attention recently. As a whole suite of papers published … Continue reading → …
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Gender and generation: social reproduction and livelihood change following Zimbabwe’s land reform
This is the second in a short series of blogs reviewing recent literature on Zimbabwe’s land reform. The theme of gender and generation is a crucial one. Land reform changed gender relations as women gained access to land, sometimes in … Continue reading → …
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Livelihood change after land reform: new research from Zimbabwe
At the beginning of each year, I try and catch up on the ever-growing literature on land, agriculture and rural change in Zimbabwe. Each year there seems to be more and more, as the body of work grows based on … Continue reading → …
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Financing agriculture: what are the challenges and opportunities in Zimbabwe?
The previous three blogs have offered some insights into the different dynamics of financing agriculture in Zimbabwe – covering in turn loans/credit, remittances and savings clubs. What is clear is that financing for commercialising and intensifying small- and medium-scale agriculture, … Continue reading → …
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Managing money: savings and investment in Zimbabwean agriculture
The previous two blogs have explored how people in rural settings get hold of money, either through loans/credit or from remittances, but making use of and managing money is a challenge, especially in a high-inflation economy and one with parallel … Continue reading → …
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The changing remittance economy in Zimbabwe
The flow of remittances to Zimbabwe is huge, with diaspora remittances from outside the country estimated at over US$1 billion per annum, or around 16% of total foreign exchange receipts. This comes from a large network in the diaspora, whether … Continue reading → …
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Why financing agriculture in Zimbabwe needs a rethink: limited credit and few loans
Finance is crucial for agriculture – for inputs, for labour, for capital investments and for dealing with emergencies – yet in Zimbabwe agricultural financing is tough. In part this is because of the state of the economy as farmers have … Continue reading → …
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Zimbabweland end-of-year wrap-up, 2023
As has become traditional, I have compiled a list of blogs published during 2023 that have been most read. Always slightly arbitrary I know as those published most recently don’t get much of a chance to appear – anyway, the … Continue reading → …
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