A central question for our new research exploring changes in livelihoods 25 years after land reform is what are the trajectories of accumulation – or indeed the opposite? In other words, how well have those who got land following the land reform of 2000 fared? The farmers occupying the small- and medium-scale farms (A1 and A2 respectively) from 2000 are not typical ‘subsistence peasants’ but are firmly linked into the wider capitalist market economy, accumulating and investing in their farms as well as off-farm businesses.
Many A1 farmers can be characterised as ‘petty commodity producers’ where capital and family labour are combined in a small-scale enterprise. Some larger A2 farmers are emerging as more typical capitalist farmers. Most land reform beneficiaries combine off-farm work or rely on remittances or other inputs and may be characterised as ‘worker-farmers’ or ‘farmer-workers’. Artisanal mining is an important livelihood in some of our sites, so combinations of mining and farming in livelihood portfolios are common.
This article is from Zimbabweland, a blog written by IDS Research Fellow Ian Scoones. Zimbabweland focuses on issues related to rural livelihoods and land reform in Zimbabwe.
