Whilst Zimbabwe’s land reform programme led to a lot of controversy, it has also proved that it has transformed the lives of thousands of small scale farmers that emerged.
Borms Matashu (34) is now a proud owner of a three tone truck which he bought for USD15000 cash from his tobacco crop sales. This is just but one example of how President Mugabe’s often criticised land redistribution through seizing formerly white owned farms and giving them to black Zimbabweans, has changed their lives for the better.
“This is the best thing that has happened to me and my family including the generality of black Zimbabweans,” said Matashu, a former factory machine operator at his six hectare (15 acres) farm near Karoi, 93 Km north of Harare. “I now lead a far better life than before,” he said.
Matashu says that he was allocated the plot in 2001 after government had seized the farm from a white farmer who has since migrated to South Africa. He started growing cotton for a few years and before long switched over to tobacco which fetches higher prices and since then he has not looked back or regretted. This year alone he has earned $34000 and won an award for being the best small scale tobacco farmer in Karoi District.
However Zimbabwe’s economy has been gripped by contradiction with plummeting exports of other crops that include roses. Analysts say that the country’s economy shrunk by half the size had been in 1980. About 18 white farmers are said to have been murdered during the violent land takeovers, whilst 620000 permanent and seasonal farm workers were affected, according to John Wesley Worswick, the head of Justice for Agriculture, a Harare based lobby group.
While some maintain that the Zimbabwean majority did not benefit from this land reform programme, some have suggested that overally the programme was not bad after all. For instance, though it says the methods used were inexcusable, a book entitled Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land by Professor Ian Scoones of Sussex University in UK concluded, “In the biggest land reform in Africa, 6000 white farmers have been replaced by 245000 Zimbabwean black farmers. These are primarily ordinary poor people who have become more productive farmers”.
Soon after the farm takeovers tobacco production in Zimbabwe plunged to 48.3 million kg s in 2008 from 236.7 million kgs in 2000, according to the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association. Now it’s making a comeback, with this year‘s 166.7 million kgs produced by the black growers earning about $612 million. Tobacco production is expected to continue increasing in the country.
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