Browsing by Author "Mavedzenge, Blasio"

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    Space, markets and employment in agricultural development: Zimbabwe
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Sukume, Chrispen; Mavedzenge, Blasio; Murimbarima, Felix
    Growth in the agricultural sector has long been assumed to automatically benefit the rural non-farm sector, chiefly through various production or consumption expenditure ‘linkages’ including local expenditure by farmers and their workers (Davis et al., 2002). However, the economic and employment benefits of agriculture crucially depend on the spatial patterns of agricultural production, processing and marketing (and their linkages to local markets). How these work in Zimbabwe is examined in what follows. These policy findings draw on detailed, area-based research that examined agriculture and its linkages in two areas marked by ‘resettlement’ by emerging small- and medium-scale farmers since the Fast-Track Land Reform of the early 2000s (Sukume et al., 2015). Two study sites in Mvurwi and Masvingo Districts were examined, focusing on a range of commodities including tobacco, horticulture and beef.
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    Space, markets and employment in agricultural development: Zimbabwe country report
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Sukume, Chrispen; Mavedzenge, Blasio; Murimbarima, Felix; Scoones, Ian
    Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has undergone several phases of land redistribution, generally to communal and working people. The latest phase was the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), which began in 2000 and redistributed 10.82 million hectares of land to 168 671 mainly small-scale producers (Moyo 2011). The result has been a major transformation of the farming landscape, with large-scale farms and ranches giving way to multiple smaller farms in an array of sizes. However, land reform on its own is not a cure for all rural economic development challenges. Land redistribution addresses the problem of land access – a key resource in generating farm-based employment and income – but, in addition, there is the need to create non-farm employment within the new rural spaces. This is an issue of central importance for agricultural development policy: not only because there are many people in rural areas who are landless or not involved in agricultural production, and who, therefore, do not benefit directly from land reform provisions, but also because large-scale agricultural investment projects, and increases in the productivity and efficiency of agriculture, may lead to people being displaced from land. Internationally, the existence of a large and growing population of landless and unemployed people, no longer involved in agriculture but unable to find a foothold in the non-farm economy, seriously compromises poverty reduction, food security, well-being and stability. Yet, the impact of agricultural development decisions on non-farm employment is often disregarded by policy-makers, who assume that those not finding employment in agriculture can be absorbed into the economy in other ways.