As noted in the previous blog, there are a number of new land arrangements emerging on A2 farms under the (very) broad label of ‘joint ventures’. Some 2500 joint ventures have been formally registered across the country to date. This blog offers some cases and a simple, non-exhaustive classification of types of such arrangement.
The big question is whether such arrangements offer a solution to the perennial problems of A2 farmers – including lack of finance, low investment, lack of market connections and limited business skills, as well as inheritance disputes and reluctance of family members to take up farm management – resulting in widespread land under-utilisation and underperformance of the medium-scale commercial sector. Or whether these new arrangements represent a grabbing back of redistributed land by capital, with negative consequences for the progressive vision of land reform.
Here we offer three different types of joint venture arrangement that we see across our sample (and beyond) especially in Mvurwi before returning to a discussion of the political implications of this move to open land reform to business investment.
Temporary land deals
First, some may be temporary deals on small areas of land, with someone from Harare for example, trying their luck at farming, perhaps drilling a borehole and aiming for specialist horticulture sales or perhaps with a contract for tobacco or another crop. During the rainy season, urban-investors can be seen roaming rural roads in expensive SUVs in search of land to farm. These are mostly black entrepreneurs seeing opportunities in farming, but often without much expertise. They may have links to transporters, contractors and others, and their role is to secure the land deal and invest, very often with no intention of becoming ‘farmers’ over the longer term.
Case 5: CC, Danbury
I was born in 1965 in Chipinge. I went to school up to grade 7, and later joined the liberation struggle. We acquired this 30 ha plot in 2002. My late husband was a mechanic. He passed away in 2024. When my husband was still alive, I was not involved in the farming operations at all. He didn’t want me to come to the farm. Following the death of my husband, I have taken over the farm and I now spend most of my time here. I have five children, but four are in South Africa and one works in Victoria Falls. We have an informal joint venture arrangement with someone from Harare. It’s a five-year arrangement, and this is his last year and I don’t know whether or not he is going to renew the arrangement. He has drilled three boreholes on the farm, and has invested in irrigation pumps and pipes. We also agreed that he will leave the irrigation infrastructure at the end of our arrangement.
Shared farms with external investors
Second, there are arrangements with an external investor who takes over part of the farm and offers in exchange some investment in say irrigation and mechanised tillage in exchange for the land, along with some land or other payment (including fertilisers or other inputs). This is more of a classic joint venture arrangement where both parties share the farm, with an exchange of resources and skills. Many of these arrangements are with former white farmers who are keen to return to farming and have the available resources. In the last year or so, we have seen an increasing number of young whites returning who were sons of former farmers but had been away for some years at university of working in Australia, South Africa or the UK, for instance, but aged 30-40 were now keen to be back home and working the land as their parents had done.
Case 6: WG, Leeuws Rust
I acquired this 40 ha A2 farm in 2003. Of the 40 hectares, only 23 hectares is arable land. In 2019, I entered into an informal joint venture arrangement with a politician and minister, but they regened on the amount of money they agreed that they would pay me. As a result, I abandoned the joint venture arrangement. I then entered into another 5-year joint venture arrangement with a white farmer in 2020. We completed all the necessary documents, but the white farmer did not submit the forms to the Ministry of Lands. Of the 23 ha of arable land, 20 ha is used under the joint venture, while I use the remaining 3 ha for my own farming. Under the joint venture, we grow tobacco and wheat. I receive 7% of proceeds. At the end of the arrangement, we agreed that the white farmer will leave the irrigation equipment, but I am not sure whether or not he will honour the terms of the arrangement. I have retained 3 ha of land to grow maize for my own consumption and sale.
Case 7: SG, Pembi Chase
I have a joint venture arrangement with a young white farmer. It is an 8-year arrangement, and we are in year seven now. I don’t know if the white farmer will renew it. I decided to enter into this arrangement because why should I stress myself with farming now? All my children are now old and completed their education up to tertiary education, some up to PhD degrees. I have a qualification in agriculture, and I have worked in various agro-dealer companies, including Pioneer and Seedco. All this enabled me to negotiate a good deal with the white farmer. Given this experience, I have good ‘negotiation’ intelligence. Although the joint venture is registered with the Ministry of Lands, I negotiated my own terms. I just negotiated for a decent rental price per hectare, rather than a percentage share of the proceeds. The problem with percentage shares of the proceeds is that when the white farmer goes to sell the produce in Harare, you won’t be there and you can easily be cheated on. So I told him that all I need is my rental per hectare per season. I don’t care whether he has planted or not, or whether it’s a drought year or not. All I want is my money every season. We agreed that he will only grow cereals. The rental cost depends on the type of crop grown. This year he wanted to do Irish potatoes, but I told him no, because Irish potatoes damages soils in the long-term. If he wants to grow Irish potatoes, we will have to renegotiate the rental fees. We retained 5 hectares for my wife to farm. You see, my wife grew up in purchase areas in Gutu, and she loves farming. She grows maize for consumption and feeding her broilers.
Case 7: WZ, Earling farm
In 2023, I entered into a joint venture with a white farmer called CH. When he first approached me, I refused but later accepted. The truth of the matter is that we are not utilising all the land and we are struggling to pay land tax. Well, it’s not exactly a joint venture to be honest. I would rather call it a “mutual agreement”. First, we agreed that we would evaluate and renew the arrangement every season, but he later made some substantial investments on the farm. He installed irrigation infrastructure including a 900m pipeline from Earling dam to my plot and centre pivot, so that I can also irrigate my crops. Initially, we had agreed that we will renew the contract every season, but there has been a revisitation because of the investment he has made. There is now an allowance for 2 to 3 seasons, although it’s flexible. There are a number of advantages with regards to this arrangement. First, I am also now able to engage in irrigation. Second, he does ‘proper’ land preparations for me such as tractor ploughing, disease spraying and establishment of crops. He also gives me some cash (US$350). So he is ‘fair’ and ‘honest’ with me. He honours and agrees to the terms of agreement.
Whole farm rentals involving investors
Third, there are larger joint ventures where a whole farm is taken over for a rental fee (for the land) or as part of a profit share arrangement. These may be informal, as was the case in the early days where such joint ventures were frowned upon, or formal, either with a legal document or through the government registration of joint ventures.
The first such deals were struck with Chinese companies, which invested in tobacco. In Mvurwi there are four different companies, coming from different parts of China, and in all cases initially with no track record in tobacco farming and in some cases without any experience in agriculture at all. Some came initially to mine and have operations ongoing across some farms and mines; others were attracted by tobacco farming and were introduced often through links with Tian Ze, the Yunnan based tobacco company with offices in Harare. One Chinese senior farm manager told us: “This is our ninth-year growing tobacco here. Currently, we have 100 hectares under tobacco.”
In addition to the very focused Chinese operations, there are now quite a number of former white farmers (and sons) now operating farms across the district. These mostly were introduced in secret when joint arrangements were illegal but now are very much in the open with a number of whole farms being managed by former farmers, often with extra areas of land rented in additionally. Black entrepreneurs have also got into large-scale farming too, with one example in our study area (although not in our sample) being a former banker who has expanded his operations over four A2 farms, producing large quantities of tobacco, as well as maize and wheat (including seed maize and wheat).
With joint ventures expanding and many becoming more established, with greater confidence in the arrangements, some joint venture farmers are seeking more land, especially those with a home base where the full farm has been taken over for the new enterprise. Depending on the crop, deals are struck with nearby farms for certain areas of land, sometimes on rotation. Such satellite farms may not get as good a deal as the core farm as the investor does not have a long-term obligation. One area may be cleared and prepared for tobacco, but it is released after two years to allow crop rotation. The same area may then be used by the farm owners or by the investor for another crop.
Case 8: CH, Mvurwi
CH is a white farmer with joint venture arrangements with seven A2 farmers. CH grew up in the area, as his father had a farm in the area. CH himself used to work as a farm manager at Forrester C. In 2021, CH entered into a joint venture arrangement with an A2 farmer who is an academic and university lecturer in Harare. This plot has become his ‘home base’, while having joint ventures with seven additional farmers in the area. Two of the farmers are part of our sample. He grows mainly tobacco, although he also grows maize for workers’ consumption. However, he plans to grow seed beans on 34ha and seed maize on 7ha as part of the rotation regime. On average, he cultivates 65ha of tobacco across the eight farms every season. One of the farm managers explained the arrangement to us: “On average, we cultivate 60ha every season. In each of the farms, we use 20ha of land, but we do a lot of rotation with Sun hemp (Crotalaria juncea L.) to improve soil fertility.” When the land is under fallow, CH does not have to pay any rental fees to the owner during that fallowing period. The fallow period depends on the soil type. He employs 190 permanent workers, and several hundreds of casual workers during peak periods. Prior to 2021, CH had a joint venture with another white farmer who managed to retain a portion of his farm following land reform. However, they had to end the joint venture as the white farmer’s son had grown up and wanted to join forces with his father.
Although tobacco dominates these joint venture and rental arrangements, some investors have developed crops such as blueberries, which require very significant investments in irrigation, cool houses, packing sheds and so on. Few are able to do this independently and must raise significant funds (see case below), but others involve large agribusiness operations financing such high value operations on A2 farms, as part of a portfolio of investments, although no such cases exist in our sample.
Case 9: SP
SP grew up in the region where his father had a farm prior to land reform. He also worked as a farm manager at Forrester C, where he still lives and does consultancy work for them. In 2010, SP entered into an informal joint venture with a well-connected A2 farmer. During the early years of the arrangement, SP grew maize, tobacco and peas. Around 2018, SP decided to venture into high-tech blueberry farming. He started with 1 ha of blueberry crops, but has since gradually expanded the operation to 13.5 hectares by October 2025. Each hectare has around 7000 plants. Each plant is grown in a pot, which is imported from South Africa. In addition, the plants and pot soil are also imported from South Africa. He has invested heavily in drip irrigation infrastructure and refrigerated packaging warehouses. In 2020, he then formalised his joint venture with the A2 farmer. SP employs 66 permanent workers, and over 200 casual workers during peak periods. He exports the blueberries to markets in Europe and to the Middle East, while the ‘rejects’ are sold locally. Besides blueberries, SP also grows peas, cherry peppers and maize. He uses the maize to feed his workers. In addition to cash, maize is also used to pay the A2 farm owner as part of the joint venture arrangement. Every season, he rents in additional land from two or three neighbouring A2 farmers on which to grow maize and as part of a rotation of peas.
In Matobo, three of the A2 farmers in our sample have entered into a joint venture with a former (white) farm owner who still retained a portion of the farm.
Case 10: JD, Matobo
85-year-old war veteran JD acquired a 460ha A2 plot in Matobo district in 2002. However, for years, he struggled to invest substantially in livestock production due to lack of financial capital. Since allocation, he has been renting out grazing to other large herd owners from further south in the district in exchange of cash. In 2017, in partnership with his son, he tried to engage in horticulture at the farm, drawing water via sand abstraction in Ovi River. However, this project failed due to various reasons, including poor markets for products and limited water supply. In 2023, JD decided to enter into a joint venture with the former white farm owner, who still retains 1000ha of the farm. The white farmer wants to build a school on the farm. JD receives cash as payment.
The costs of land deals
The costs to farm owners of such arrangements vary depending on the soil type, availability of water and the type of crop. However, details of such arrangements are often not divulged to visiting researchers, and we have only got information on a few farms.
Formal joint venture documents held by the Lands Departments are not available and as informants suggest there are many other ‘costs’ associated with arranging such deals, with arrangements being extremely non-transparent. Especially for smaller, temporary deals, money can exchange hands for facilitating arrangements, and even though formal re-registration of land in new owners’ names must now happen centrally, much corruption around land issues still occurs at all levels.
In an agronomically suitable area, a number of informants noted that tobacco land can command US$300 per hectare per year, while dryland grain crop land may go for around US$250 per hectare. Grazing land is rarely rented, but costs will be much lower, around $150. Share arrangements are around 7-10% of income, although there are many disputes about how this is calculated, with farm owners complaining that joint venture investors cheat them, with fiddled receipts and false accounting.
In sum, there are a variety of processes going on in parallel, both formal and informal. Legal assurance through lawyers signing affidavits may be limited when land officers intervene on behalf of a party, especially when money has exchanged hands. As discussed in the previous blog, the supposed assurances of titling are some way off, and may never be realised in part because of the confused nature of land ownership in these farms with layers of deals being struck over many years.
Changing land control: the politics of A2 farms
With joint ventures and other land rental/leasing arrangements, the levels of underutilisation of land is declining, but at the same time the patterns of ownership, use and land control are changing.
Some ask, is this really land reform, or a reversal of progressive gains of land reform through ‘land grabbing’ as capital reasserts itself on redistributed land? Unlike most grabs, though, such arrangements are entered into willingly, but terms are of course extremely uneven. External investors have money, often with large commercial backers behind them, while A2 land reform beneficiaries are in a corner, without finance and with limited options.
Capital – coming in a number of forms, from Chinese mining and infrastructure companies, to former white farmers with assets, to large agribusiness operations, to black entrepreneurs – certainly has the upper hand, with significant resources flowing into these areas as a result.
Given the failure to invest in many farms over 25 years, this may be a good thing. Production increases, land is utilised and valuable products are produced for the market (including high value export markets unavailable to most), with employment opportunities expanding for many. This may be the necessary route to successful land reform through changing land control and attracting external investment. Land reform, under this view, is ‘open for business’, to use the slogan of the current government.
However, without controls on such investments, through a take-over by capital, the gains of land reform many be reversed. This may end up as capital ‘grabbing back’ in redistributed areas as the critics claim, with resulting land concentration and exclusion. This outcome may become more likely with the expansion of titling under a freehold land market where the land can then be bought by such investors, with farms re-consolidated into large estates, as investors expand their operations over a number of farms, cherry-picking the best land with access to water.
Whether such investors are black or white Zimbabweans, Chinese, Indians or South Africans is irrelevant, the consequence would be a reversal of the redistributive gains of land reform, even if in the case of A2 farms the beneficiaries were already the (relatively) well off elites, with political if not financial power. The rhetoric around investment and business plays well in many quarters, whether in many parts of government or with the World Bank and the international donors, but some question the politics of such moves. The reversal of the land reform may benefit not only a small number of Chinese investors and former white farmers but a black elite too with lots of money to spend. Capital, perhaps especially oligarchic capital with political backing, has a way of winning out, as many other experiences from around the world have shown.
This is why protecting the land reform against such an outcome is essential, while still encouraging investment and new forms of land sharing, and joint ventures. This is why, in my long-held view, a transferrable leasehold system is preferable to a completely open freehold arrangement, as conditions to the lease can be applied on, for example, the origins of potential leaseholders, the number of farms held as well as the production and investment carried out. It may well be that the final versions of titles being rolled out now will be effectively the same associated with such conditions, reducing these risks.
But without a comprehensive, transparent land administration system, which can avoid underhand deals and registration of land in ways that are not compliant with wider redistributive policy commitments, opportunities for capture will remain. The piecemeal approach to land issues in Zimbabwe, and the extreme politicisation of these issues, undermines the capacity for a forward-thinking approach to the future of A2 areas, where regulated joint ventures are seen as part of the picture, bringing the benefits of investment without the costs of land reconsolidation and inequity.
This post was written by Ian Scoones and Tapiwa Chatikobo and first appeared on Zimbabweland.