The high potential areas of Mvurwi in Mazowe district should be the focus for significant commercial agricultural success on the A2 farms as envisaged in the government’s land reform strategy. There is reliable rainfall, good soils, excellent connections to markets, an available, skilled workforce and an impressive inherited infrastructure of small dams, roads and farm buildings. However, once again A2 farms have struggled over the last 25 years, although again with much variation and some important innovations in land use and investment.
Investing in farming
Across our sites there has been significant investment in as well as rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. The Mvurwi area has around 1000 small dams built during the colonial era to support white agriculture, and these are crucial for irrigated production. Many are being used as irrigation expands, but challenges of siltation and environmental degradation through chrome mining has become an issue of late. With the new farms being subdivisions of often large estates, there has been a need to drill boreholes and extend pipework to standing water, and there has been a significant expansion of horticultural production across A2 farms.
Case 1: MM, Pembi Chase
I was born in 1995 in Mvurwi. I inherited this plot from my late parents who acquired the land in 2002. My father was a farm manager in Concession where he also grew up. He passed away in 2012 and my mother passed away in 2020. When my parents were still alive, we used to grow tobacco, maize and sweet potatoes. Following my mother’s death, I decided to abandon tobacco because it’s such a ‘jealousy’ crop (fodya ine shanje). Instead, I ventured into horticulture. As young people, we prefer to engage in horticulture, while older people prefer tobacco farming. I grow water melons and tomatoes. This year, I purchased a solar-powered submersible pump and two solar panels. Using proceeds from horticulture, I have managed to educate my siblings. I was born in a family of three – two boys and one girl. My sister (born 2000) just completed her degree in Business and Industrial Economics from the University of Zimbabwe, and my younger brother is doing Form 2 in Mvurwi town.
Despite the growth of horticulture, the core commodity in this area remains tobacco. Nearly all A2 farmers grow tobacco, some in large quantities. The amount of tobacco production in Mvurwi has sky-rocketed across A1 and A2 areas, and there are now 14 tobacco auction floors in the town. This has been driven by investment through contracting companies, ranging from the big players like Tian Ze (Chinese) and Mashonaland Tobacco Company (subsidiary of Alliance One, a global conglomerate) to an array of small operators, with a total of 32 players operating nationally. The contractors supply inputs, finance for labour, fuel for curing (coal) and offer guaranteed markets. Given the scale of operation most A2 farmers cannot afford to self-finance fully, so reliance on contracting is critical.
Tobacco requires good infrastructure, including irrigation for seedlings, barns for curing, and a skilled workforce, especially when grading and selling. Investments have been significant in new barns, and for some more sophisticated fuel-efficient rocket barns. In addition to houses built on the A2 farms, the array of new or repurposed farm buildings including curing barns, sheds and so on, across Mvurwi is impressive. This is witness to the huge tobacco boom driven from the land reform areas, with this last season resulting in Zimbabwe’s biggest ever tobacco harvest of 350,000 tonnes.
Mobilising labour for commercial agriculture
Access to labour is a continuous complaint amongst A2 farmers in Mvurwi. Despite many having resident labour in former compounds nearby, mobilising the former farmworkers for the level of salary being paid (as little as US$3.50 per day) can be challenging.
Many farmworkers prefer to focus on their own small plots that they were allocated (some before, more after land reform), where on even just a hectare of land they can make good money from tobacco given their significant agronomic skills in tobacco production. Many also rent in land to expand production – including from A2 farmers, turning the tables in terms of land use. The result is that the captive resident workforce that existed for former white farmers is often no longer available.
At certain times, tobacco production requires maybe several hundred labourers on an A2 farm, so farm owners must seek labour from further afield, including the A1 areas and the communal areas in Chiweshe, Muzarabani and Guruve. However, agriculture must now compete with mining in Mvurwi, especially since the chrome boom that started in March 2024. Large numbers of people flock to the Great Dyke to dig and then process chrome for sale to Chinese, South Africans and other traders.
Some A2 farmers have begun to seek new solutions that replicate to some extent the arrangements that existed before when white farmers controlled the land and labour in a system of paternalistic and exploitative ‘domestic government’. In order to secure reliable labour, a core group is created on the farm, with tenancy arrangements providing them housing and small farm plots, but with a closer engagement (and control by) the farm owner than under the current compound system where former farmworker families have no obligations towards the new landowners.
Case 2: MM, Pembi Chase
I have two sisters who are single women who live on the farm with their children. These women are not my relatives. They are from Muzarabani. The arrangement is that they provide labour for me in exchange for accessing land to farm. However, a rule of thumb here is that the area should not exceed 2 ha. These two women have access to 2 ha of land between them in return to providing me with farm labour.
Financing agriculture
The lack of access to finance is a continuous refrain from farmers in Mvurwi. Without funds, investment in infrastructure and annual financing of crops is impossible. In the past, white farmers were offered generous loans through the banks, and in the early days, promises were made to new A2 farmers that the government would support them too. This has not been forthcoming and the opportunity to borrow against land assets has been impossible without an agreement between the banks and the government on the wording of the 99-year lease, which were to be issued to A2 farm owners but never materialised (bar a few high-profile media cases). The long litany of failure to support A2 farmers has meant that potentials have often not been realised.
Command Agriculture was supposed to offer a solution – a loan arrangement from the government with logistics supported by the military and with backing from the highest level. This was the flagship programme from 2016 and ran for around four years. As has been extensively discussed (see earlier blog), the Command Agriculture programme was controversial, as it was open to capture by elites and became a site of selective patronage. Only a few benefited, and even in the high potential area of Mvurwi where the programme was supposed to have been concentrated, the percentage of A2 farmers who received support – mostly for maize growing with supplementary irrigation – was minimal. Many of these recipients complained that inputs were late or in the wrong quantities and combinations and that the programme only really benefited the real elite who could jump the queue and gain the full package with very little expectation that it would be paid back.
Due to high default rates and a shift in priority, the Command Agriculture programme (and its many spin-offs) was wound down in late 2019. Now farmers must seek private finance to support their operations. CBZ offers bank loans, but against collateral, including houses in town. Some with such assets have been given loans, but agriculture is risky, and default is likely. Many have suffered, even with town homes being reclaimed by the bank. This has resulted in much stress, and in one case a suicide of a farmer in Pembi Chase near Mvurwi after the farmer had used a son-in-law’s house as collateral.
Another option is to rely on contract farming, which is available mostly for tobacco. Getting a contract for a limited area (a few hectares) allows farmers to spread the inputs to other areas, but the contractors require high quality leaf, and some farmers fail to supply, with defaults again being common. Combining contracting with self-financing is the most common strategy as risks are spread and at least some of the area cropped has a guaranteed market through the contract arrangement.
Other contracting arrangements are with seed companies (for maize, wheat and soya), but these have even more challenging requirements so that the seed is pure, and this requires irrigation and significant management and labour. Many A2 farmers, especially those absent from the farm, fail to comply with the stringent requirements, and it is the joint venture farmers with capital who can benefit from these arrangements.
The growing value of land: land markets, crime and violence
Due to the demand for land and the high potentials there has been a massive growth in land markets in the A2 areas of Mvurwi. There is a lot of leasing, borrowing, illegal selling/purchase and many joint ventures. There are a number of different types of such arrangements, with many different actors involved, as will be discussed in the next blog.
The high value of land reform areas in Mvurwi, increasing through these processes of external investment, means that these farms are subject to significant levels of theft and other crime, sometimes violent with a number of murders having been recorded in the last season following tobacco sales.
This has been a growing concern in the last few years, making it imperative that farm owners are frequently present and invest in the necessary security. Thefts of produce, equipment, fencing, livestock and other assets is a frequent challenge, as A2 farms are surrounded by other communal areas, A1 farms, small towns and compounds with many former farmworkers live on these farms but without any direct relationship with the owner.
Gender and generational changes: questions about land ownership
As in our other study sites, many of the original owners of the farms have now died, leaving wives, sons and daughters (or other relatives) to manage the farm. The arrangements are often complex, with different people having a stake in the farm, with divided responsibilities and accountabilities. Disputes frequently arise, resulting in confusions that disrupt farming.
A2 farmers’ children, perhaps especially in Mvurwi, where there is a greater preponderance of ‘elites’, are often reluctant to take over farms. They are living abroad and are happy to continue to support parents when they are alive, but when they pass on, what happens to the land is a big question. As in other areas, many women are reluctant to engage in A2 farm production, as they have social reproduction obligations in other places, notably the town home and may be involved in other income earning activities, including employment.
Case 3: CM, Leeuws Rust
83-year-old CM is a widow who lives in Concession. Her late husband, a war veteran, acquired a 92ha A2 plot in 2002 in Leeuws Rust. At the time, he was a farm manager at the farm. However, he passed away in 2003, soon after acquiring the farm. Since then, the farm, had been standing idle, while CM and the children continued to live in Concession town while children attend school. In 2016, CM and her sons decided to deploy a ‘caretaker’ to stay on the farm as a strategy to hold on to the land. The ‘caretaker’, whose wife’s mother shared a similar ‘Nzou’ totem with CM, now lives on the plot with his family. The caretaker is originally from Rusape. The arrangement is that he does his own farming in return for looking after the plot. According to the caretaker, the farm was “just bush” with no homestead. He had to build two pole and dagga houses, which he still lives in today. CM is now old, and continues to live in town. His two sons are also engaging in ‘mushikashika’ in Concession and Bindura. The family has since sold 30 ha of the land to an urban investor from Harare who is engaging in cattle fattening, while renting out the rest of the grazing land to another cattle farmer.
Case 4: TC, Balwick
The late war veteran, TC acquired an A2 plot in 2001. Upon acquiring the farm, he moved with his wife to the farm. With all their children working in towns, TC stayed with his ‘muzukuru’ (sister’s son) who helped him with farming. In 2021, TC died due to COVID-19 and his widow returned to their original home in Chiweshe. However, the muzukuru still lives on the farm with his wife and young children. They survive on ‘maricho’. Currently, the household has a joint venture with a young white Zimbabwean. The household is also leasing out grazing to a cattle farmer who also employs his ‘muzukuru’. TC’s son, who is now responsible for managing the farm, lives in Harare.
The assumption of the ideal farming operation being led by a middle-aged, active male farming head who can lead an agricultural business (getting finance, managing labour, organising markets, negotiating joint ventures/rentals and so on) is becoming a problematic one today. Wives, children and others are not able or willing to comply with this model. This is of course what happened in white owned farms before, but such farms could be sold on if the family was not able to continue to manage it, but this is currently illegal in the land reform areas. For this reason, joint ventures are a good solution – coming in a whole variety of forms (see next blog).
Surprisingly, few A2 farms are being subdivided, unlike the pattern we see in A1 areas. In part this is reluctance by sons/daughters but there are other hurdles, as recognising new land holders with A2 farms, with new offer letters is challenging, requiring negotiation with land officers (and bribes). The legality of such subdivisions is also questioned, as officially A2 farms (as A1) are supposed to retain the expected size for commercial production. Some farmers however have subdivided successfully, suggesting one future trajectory for such areas, as seen in former African Purchase Areas.
Without transferrable leases and with uncertainty around the new titling programme, there is an impasse in how in the longer-term land will be managed and transferred. A2 farmers we spoke to sounded enthusiastic about the idea of getting title, but worried both about the expense and the length of time it would take and the arduous bureaucratic requirements. Those in joint ventures might lean on their business partner to facilitate the process, but even those who have got started on the paperwork are uncertain as to where it will lead. Lawyers have been employed, but they too are unclear about the legal status of such titles and whether they can be upheld – and in turn transferred. Others are investing in the titling process because of fears of grabs of land from urban expansion or new investments in tourist areas, golf courses and so on. They hope to protect their land or potentially cash in, but one whose land has been eyed up for a major high-profile ‘smart city’ investment has not heard anything about the title application over many months, suspecting it is being held up by others with interest in the land.
A policy vacuum
Perhaps especially in Mvurwi amongst our study sites, in the future we can expect more wrangles over land ownership, either through inheritance disputes or because of uncertainties around land titling. In the absence of a full land market supported by a clear land administration system, we can expect the number of joint ventures to continue to expand. The result will be more and more of the land, even if notionally owned by land reform beneficiaries, will be run by external investors, whether former white farmers, black business people or Chinese investors.
The lack of clarity about ownership and how land is used, as well as the on-going challenges of inheritance, may continue to disrupt the clear potentials for agricultural growth in this area, which we can clearly see across a number of our sample farms, whether run by land reform farmers or in partnership with investors. Potentials are being held back by the failure to have an effective land administration system with transferable land ownership arrangements (leases or titles), along with a lack of cheap finance for agriculture and challenges with labour. All these areas are amenable to policy intervention, yet the only highly visible effort surrounds titling, which is occurring in a wider policy vacuum on agricultural development, and with much suspicion about motives as well as questions around implementation being raised.
This post was written by Ian Scoones and Tapiwa Chatikobo and first appeared on Zimbabweland.