New report assesses impact of fast-track land reform

A new study points to critical policy errors as the main reasons for food and nutrition insecurity in Zimbabwe, in particular the government's fast-track land redistribution programme. It is still unclear just how many Zimbabweans will face food shortages this year, although some estimates have been as high as 4.5 million out of a population of 11.6 million. A recent countrywide survey of communities indicated a sharply deteriorating food security situation, with 82 percent of districts reporting widespread crop failure after poor rains in the 2004/05 growing season. The study, funded by the UK Department for International Development, acknowledged the adverse impact of poor weather on the harvest, but argued that poor policy choices were among the chief reasons why the food crisis has dragged on since the crop-marketing year of 2002/03. It noted that as large-scale commercial farms were taken over under the controversial land redistribution programme in 2000, the area planted fell dramatically - at one point to less than half the area previously tilled - as did the use of hybrid seed and fertiliser. Furthermore, state control of maize marketing through the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) worsened the situation. "The GMB set the buying price of maize but, given rapid inflation, this price was unattractive, so farmers had little incentive to invest in intensified production and generate a surplus of maize," the researchers said. To illustrate the extent to which policy failures impacted on production, the study used three southern African countries with similar weather patterns and compared actual harvest figures for Zambia and South Africa between 2000-04 with projected harvests in Zimbabwe over the same period, had fast-track land reform not been instituted. The results showed that Zimbabwe might have had a smaller harvest in 2001, but after that its output would have been much larger: between 2001 and 2004 the actual harvest was 3.77 megatonnes; in the research model production reached 6.24 megatonnes. Had Zimbabwe performed as modelled, the regional harvest deficit in 2002 would have been fully one-third less, considerably reducing the amount of international food aid needed that year. However, Professor Sam Moyo, a Harare-based land expert, told IRIN it was disingenuous to compare agricultural production among the three countries without considering particular challenges facing Zimbabwe's economy as a whole. "Firstly, it is unfair to compare Zimbabwe's agricultural performance, especially to that of South Africa's, where production is undertaken by large-scale commercial farmers, who ... [have access to] heavily subsidised irrigation schemes [and] drought conditions only occurred in parts of Zambia. It would be fair to compare what Zimbabwe is going through with countries such as Malawi and Swaziland, who have experienced equally severe drought conditions," Moyo said. He added that prior to land reform 75 percent of Zimbabwe's maize was grown by small-scale farmers rather than the commercial sector, which focused more on producing tobacco, wheat and dairy. The slump in agricultural production was directly linked to overall economic difficulties, Moyo argued, especially the lack of access to international credit lines. "The land reform programme really only had a major impact on five of the 15 major commodities produced by white commercial farmers," said Moyo. "And, yes, food production has been disrupted, [but] mainly because of the lack of access to inputs and the slow response to supporting newly resettled farmers."