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 2023 top 15 ‘greatest hits’ are below.
We have had two important blog series this year, reporting on-going research across our sites – in Chikombedzi, Triangle/Hippo Valley, Wondedzo-Masvingo, Chatsworth-Gutu, Matobo and Mvurwi. Thanks to the team based in all these sites and to Felix Murimbarimba for continued coordination of the work.
The first was a popular series on ‘the hidden middle’ – the set of economic interactions that occur between production and consumption, involving transport, logistics, processing and more. A huge amount of economic activity is going on linked to maize, horticulture and poultry, the commodities that we looked at. The other, more recent series was on mechanisation – for production, processing and transport – where small-scale appropriate mechanisation is revolutionising agriculture and the wider economy. Look out for a series on ‘finance’ in the new year.
Many people read the blog and there are now over 500 posts on the site, with many visitors returning to older blogs. The search facility works well so do have a browse. In the past year, I have been asked by several people (including a journalist for a global newspaper, a diplomat and several donor officials) for information on certain themes and compiled the following list, which allows access to the archive around certain themes.
- On land reform outcomes: Zimbabwe’s land reform areas twenty years on (1): A blog series | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (series based on our data, the story of how differentiated outcomes across A1 and A2 sites emerged)
- On changing phases of land reform. Phases of Zimbabwe’s land reform: a shifting political economy | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (why the obsession with the early stages of land invasions detracts from the bigger story).
- On tenure and land administration. Beyond the freehold title obsession: generating land tenure security | zimbabweland (wordpress.com); Zimbabwe urgently needs a new land administration system | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (and why we (still) need to get away from thinking everything can be sold by titling, or even lease agreements and why a more holistic look at an integrated, district based land administration system is needed).
- On land utilisation Underutilised land in Zimbabwe: not a new problem | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (pointing out that the debate about land utilisation is far from new).
- On the compensation deal. compensation | Search Results | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (the FAQ one is probably the best one to start with for this complex and still-evolving debate)
- On medium-scale farms (A2) Medium-scale commercial farming in Zimbabwe: how has it fared since land reform? | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (on the mixed success of A2 farms and the problems they face).
- On ‘small towns’ and local economic development How land reform transformed small towns in Zimbabwe | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (and how economic linkages from land reform areas are vitally important and a key part of any assessment of impact).
- On the food economy Why is there food insecurity in Zimbabwe? | zimbabweland (wordpress.com) (why the continued narrative about food insecurity doesn’t help, and why a new look at the food economy taking account of land reform is needed).
There is much, much more of course, and a lot of this has been published formally in peer-review articles. Do download or buy our open access book compilation of articles or take a look at this list of articles we have produced over the years. For those who claim idly on Twitter/X that our work is not based on evidence and data, have a read!
So, thank you to the many readers of Zimbabweland from many different countries for informal feedback and continued readership. There have been 35 blogs this year and about 56k words of text – and lots of photos too. I hope you have enjoyed some of the posts! We hope to enter a new phase of field-based empirical work in 2024-25, exploring the experience of land reform, now over 25 years. Please look out for updates in the new year.