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Browsing by Author "Zamchiya, Phillan"

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An activist's user guide to regional and international guidelines and principles for large-scale land-based investments
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, 2019-12-01) Zamchiya, Phillan
As multinational corporations continue to invest in large-scale, land-based, commercial ventures in Africa, a need to regulate such investments to protect the rural poor, especially women, has been identified. A number of stakeholders have intensified efforts since 2009 to promote ‘responsible’ investment in land, in particular by deploying regional and international principles and guidelines on large-scale, land-based investments.
Another countryside? Policy options for land and agrarian reform in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009) Aliber, Michael; Andrews, Mercia; Baiphethi, Mompati; Cliffe, Lionel; Hall, Ruth; Jacobs, Peter; Jara, Mazibuko; Kleinbooi, Karin; Lahiff, Edward; Zamchiya, Phillan
Land reform in South Africa is a political project that has foundered. For years, the process has been variously described as being ‘in crisis’, ‘at a crossroads’, ‘at an impasse’ or simply ’stuck’. This still seems as true as ever, as political pressure is mounting to find new solutions to old problems. In recent years, the issue of ‘delivery’, and how to speed it up, has taken centre stage and become a justificatory framework for arguments about how to reconfigure roles of the state and private sector in land reform. In the process, little attention has been given to the relationship between policy change and mobilisation from below. In the absence of sustained and organised pressure from rural people themselves, it appears that the shifts underway in land reform policy are not so much about ‘delivery’ as about reframing the entire project. Increasingly, the debates on land reform centre not so much on the mechanisms to be used, as on the vision that is to be pursued – something about which existing policy is remarkably silent. At stake is nothing less than what, and whom, land reform is for. South Africans are deeply divided on this question.
Changing agro-food systems: The impact of big agro-investors on food rights. Case studies in Mozambique and Zambia
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2016) Joala, Refiloe; Zamchiya, Phillan; Ntauazi, Clemente; Musole, Patrick; Katebe, Ceasar
This book presents case studies on changing agro-food systems in Southern Africa within the context of large-scale land-based and agri-business investments. By capturing the testimonies of local people in rural settings, with a particular focus on small-scale farmers, it aims to provide vivid accounts of the micro-level changes underway in agro-food systems in Southern Africa, and to reflect the experiences and perspectives of local people.
Changing agro-food systems: The impact of big agro-investors on food rights: Case studies in Mozambique and Zambia
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016) Joala, Refiloe; Zamchiya, Phillan; Ntauazi, Clemente; Musole, Patrick; Katebe, Ceasar
This book presents case studies that offer some insights into the rapid process of change underway in African agro-food systems, and in Southern Africa in particular, within the context of land-based and agricultural investments. These testimonials were gathered as part of exploratory research aimed at investigating how increasing levels of investment are restructuring agro-food systems and the implications of these changes on how people produce and access food. Therefore, we do not claim to present conclusive evidence of the impact of agri-business on local agro-food systems in the region, but rather, we argue that increasing levels of land-based and agricultural investments in Mozambique and Zambia have led to the reconfiguring of the input supply framework, the reshaping of local farming systems and the restructuring of market infrastructure – what we characterise as agro-food systems. The increasing levels of investment are affecting different people in different ways. The case studies presented in this book show the wider impact of these investments on rural livelihoods, household food security and local food environments.
Changing customary land tenure regimes in Zambia, implications for women’s land rights
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03) Zamchiya, Phillan; Musa, Chilombo
This paper argues that the formalisation of customary land through a rural certification programme in Nyimba District, Zambia, has triggered the establishment of a new tenure regime that transcends the dualism between Western legal forms of private property and idealised customary systems. Within this agrarian transition, the number of social conflicts over land boundaries have fallen, at least in the short term; women’s perceptions of tenure security have improved; and women’s participation in land administration at the local level has increased. In addition, a significant number of married women have registered residential land and farmland in their own names. However, the transition has also produced a number of negative impacts. Multiple land claims by women have been dismissed. Men have continued to dominate power relations in the district. Certification has not necessarily led to greater access to credit, improved agricultural productivity, or a rise in investment. Informal land markets have become more expensive with certification producing a veneer of legitimacy for buying and selling customary land, even though such transactions remain, strictly speaking, illegal. On the other hand, agrarian support has been skewed to the benefit of wealthier, better-connected, and dominant women with land-holding certificates and to the detriment of less-powerful women. Accordingly, many of the envisaged benefits of formalisation through an evolutionary approach to land tenure rights have not been realised. The argument developed by this paper is based on original field data obtained through quantitative household surveys, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions.
Changing labor, land and social relations on commercial farms: a case study from Limpopo, South Africa
(2008) Zamchiya, Phillan; Hall, Ruth
Over the past fifteen years, the South African government has extended various land, labour and social rights to farm workers, ranging from provisions of basic labour rights in 1993 to the minimum wage in 2003. Literature suggests that social relations on commercial farms do not remain static in the context of policy changes. This thesis sets out to understand the ways in which social relations have or have not changed, on one commercial farm in Limpopo province, South Africa, and to establish factors that impede or promote such change as well as the consequences for farm workers’ daily lives. Drawing from the interpretive and critical social science philosophical perspectives, the thesis adopts a qualitative research methodology that takes into consideration the experiences and perceptions of farm workers, farm managers, the farm owner and key informants from government institutions and civil society. At a theoretical level the study is informed by four paradigms namely: the materialist perspective; the total institution thesis; paternalism; and structuration theory. It considers three overlapping conceptual models of understanding relations between farm owners and farm workers namely the welfarist, workerist and transformative models. The paper argues that, in the past decade, the extension of farm labour and tenure laws to the farm sector has eroded the welfarist relations between the farm owner and farm workers. There is now a rise in workerist relations in a context of unequal power relations tilted in favour of the farm employer. The thesis concludes that in order to adequately understand land, labour and social relations, one has to consider the politics of land ownership as well as the politics of agricultural capitalist employment.
Commercialisation of land and ‘Land Grabbing': Implications for Land Rights and livelihoods in Malawi
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Zamchiya, Phillan; Gausi, Joseph
This study investigates the processes and impact of commercialisation of land in Malawi – specifically the acquisition of huge tracts of communal lands by foreign companies and local elites for sugarcane production in Nkhotakota and Chikwawa districts. The main finding was that ‘land grabbing’ for large-scale commercial agriculture in these two districts negatively affected the livelihoods of the poor communal farmers. The costs to the affected communities outweighed the benefits. In the two districts studied, land grabbing was driven by a weak communal tenure legal framework and the Malawi government’s support for large-scale agro-investments. The key players behind land grabbing were local elites, traditional leaders, foreign companies, international agencies, the coercive apparatus of the state – the police and army – and politicians. The land acquisition processes in both districts were violent and arbitrary, with no compensation offered to the displaced communities. The way in which the land was acquired resulted in the destruction of people’s properties, crops and household incomes, leading to increased food insecurity and poverty among the rural poor. Even though Malawi is a signatory to international land governance frameworks1, there was a disjuncture between policy and practice due to the players not complying with the statutes.
Differentiation and development: The case of the Xolobeni community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
(PLAAS, 2019-11-15) Zamchiya, Phillan
Most agrarian scholars argue that long historic processes of colonialism, capitalist development and implementation of neo-liberal structural policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have resulted in deagrarianisation and its sub-genre of depeasantisation particularly in South Africa. I argue that this long historic process epitomised, in some cases, by abandonment of cropping fields and deactivation of agriculture was uneven between and within communities across South Africa. Glossing over the geographic and socially differentiated outcomes has partly led to the general characterisation of rural communities as relic agrarian populations that need to be modernised through a new wave of large-scale land based investments. To substantiate, I use the case study of Xolobeni, which is situated on the Wild Coast, in the Eastern Cape Province. The Xolobeni community is engaged in a struggle against the South African government and the Transworld Energy and Minerals Resources (TEM) from Australia, which wants to invest in titanium mining in the area since 2001. Following a series of struggles, in 2018 the North Gauteng High Court ruled that the community has a right to say no to a development project, in line with the international principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). In addition to this legal right, I posit that the community actively used land for multiple livelihoods including gardening, livestock and crop production as well as marine resource harvesting for both consumption and for sale in contrast to the deactivation thesis. Given local processes of social differentiation, the benefits differed to a degree across a continuum of subsistence-oriented households, market-oriented households, wage and sale reliant households and wage reliant households. However, in all cases land-based livelihoods were essential in enabling households to create a higher standard of living. Consequently, the community preferred ecotourism and an agrarian model of development that would preserve their livelihoods, conserve ecological natural resources and reduce rural poverty as well as contribute to wider national economic development.
Farm workers and farm dwellers in Limpopo, South Africa: Struggles over tenure, livelihoods and justice
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2013) Wisborg, Poul; Hall, Ruth; Shirinda, Shirhami; Zamchiya, Phillan
Stories about farm workers and dwellers losing their homes, land and livelihoods are common in contemporary South Africa, and also in Limpopo Province. Around 1988, Grace M.1 and her children were evicted from a Limpopo farm, where she had lived for more than twenty years and given birth to seven children. Strictly speaking, it was the cattle owned by Grace and her husband that were evicted, as the landowner wanted to reserve all the grazing for his own stock. Grace took the livestock and the children to a nearby village, where she still lives, while her husband remained on the farm as a worker without his own stock. In the village the cattle died but the goats thrived. The children grew up with only intermittent contact with their father, who died on the farm.
Foreign investments and livelihoods in northern Zambia
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2018-12) Zamchiya, Phillan
This study employs a wider livelihoods approach to challenge some insular neo-classical economic narratives on the nature, process and impact of large-scale land acquisitions on smallholder farmers living on Africa’s customary land. Large-scale land-based acquisitions are often justified as a vehicle to utilise idle land, improve land productivity, modernise the countryside, commercialise the agrarian sector, create jobs and ensure macro-economic returns, while conversely portraying smallholder land-based livelihoods as pristine, unproductive, unable to support national development and enhance poverty reduction. This approach is problematic, since the diverse land uses by smallholder farmers are narrowly examined, the production and poverty reduction value to rural livelihoods is largely ignored and the social implications, psychological ramifications and economic benefits of the large-scale capitalist ventures are not explored in-depth. Even the process of land acquisition is hardly regulated by an array of international, regional and national guidelines on responsible investments. This is because of the intersection of the state, traditional leaders and private sector interests staked against the smallholder farmers in coercive hierarchical relationships. Of course, investors create some jobs with some differential benefits but these are often seasonal and too precarious to augment sustainable alternative livelihoods. This article therefore provides rich empirical data from Zambia’s newly-created Chembe district to demonstrate the limitations of the romanticised neo-classical economic benefits and the need for a wider livelihoods lens. From such a wider perspective, we challenge the notion of an agrarian trajectory based on a capitalist transition to large-scale farms and co-existence premised on voluntary regulation in the context of weak governance and unequal power relations, thus opting for an alternative path hinged on securing livelihoods for the rural smallholder farmers.
The impacts of large-scale agricultural investments on food production systems: The case of Gurué district, Mozambique
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Ntauazi, Clemente Jorge; Zamchiya, Phillan
Large-scale agricultural investments in Mozambique peaked following the food, fuel and finance crises in 2008 and so far, more than 34 land deals have been established in the country. Proponents of such investments point to the advantages of capital investment, market adaptability and economies of scale. The large-scale agricultural investments have intensified as a mechanism to address food demands, ensure food security and improve production and productivity patterns. This study analyses the impacts of large-scale agricultural investments on the food production of small-scale farmers in one district. The main question guiding the study is: what are the impacts of large-scale agricultural investments on the food production systems of small-scale farmers and what is the significance of the dynamics of agrarian change of land labour, input or technology and livelihoods in Gurué district? Specifically, the study assesses the impacts on small-scale farmers’ access to, use and control of the land; on agricultural inputs and farming technology; and on household employment and livelihoods’ trajectories.
Intra-party cohesion in Zimbabwe’s ruling party after robert mugabe
(Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2023) Zamchiya, Phillan
Some mainstream political scientists apply the trilogy of exit, voice and loyalty in studying intra-party cohesion. This approach applies more neatly in liberal than in repressive contexts. I therefore make three modifications to enhance the trilogy’s descriptive and explanatory power in an authoritarian context using the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) after Robert Mugabe. First, there is need to integrate non-voluntary exit as party members are mostly expelled against their will in a context where there are limited livelihood opportunities outside party-state patronage and defection is ruthlessly punished. Second, voice should be understood as predominantly expressed over preferences for personalities in internal power distribution rather than over policies. Third, loyalty is not always to the party institution to promote unity but to individuals or factions. From this positioning, ZANU PF is predominantly a non-cohesive party characterised by ephemerally organised leader-follower groups largely seeking power and patronage.
Large-scale land deals in Southern Africa voices of the people
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2015) Hall, Ruth; Gausi, Joseph; Matondi, Prosper; Nhancale, Camilo; Phiri, Dimuna; Zamchiya, Phillan; Muduva, Theodor
This book presents case studies of large-scale land deals in Southern Africa. It aims to provide an accessible and vivid window into the lived realities and responses of rural people who are affected by such deals. For this reason, we have paid particular attention to what local people say, and have quoted their experiences and responses to the land deals. The book emerges from an action research project implemented by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, in partnership with non-governmental organisations in five Southern African countries: LandNet in Malawi, Kuwuka Juventude Desenvolvimento e Advocacia Ambiental in Mozambique, Legal Assistance Center in Namibia, Zambia Land Alliance in Zambia and Ruzivo Trust in Zimbabwe. Our joint project, entitled Commercialisation of Land and ‘Land Grabbing’ in Southern Africa: Implications for Land Rights and Livelihoods in Southern Africa,
Large-scale land deals in Southern Africa: Voices of the people
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Hall, Ruth; Gausi, Joseph; Matondi, Prosper; Muduva, Theodor; Nhancale, Camilo; Phiri, Dimuna; Zamchiya, Phillan
This book of case studies addresses situations in which commercial projects are planned on land held by rural communities. These include big farming projects by foreign and local companies, farmers becoming out-growers selling to agribusinesses, and concessions to mining companies. The dramatic growth in big land deals over the past decade is a phenomenon not specific to Southern Africa. It is part of what has been termed a ‘global land rush’ following food price spikes, financial crisis and fuel price volatility (and growing interest in biofuels) in the period 2007-2008. Both domestic and foreign investors are increasingly keen to move into farming and other commercial ventures in rural areas. This has been presented as welcome development but also criticised as constituting a ‘land grab’. Our case studies provide some empirical basis to debate these points of view.
Large-scale land deals in Southern Africa: voices of the people
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Hall, Ruth; Gausi, Joseph; Matondi, Prosper; Muduva, Theodor; Nhancale, Camilo; Phiri, Dimuna; Zamchiya, Phillan
This book presents case studies of large-scale land deals in Southern Africa. It aims to provide an accessible and vivid window into the lived realities and responses of rural people who are affected by such deals. For this reason, it pays particular attention to what local people say, and has quoted their experiences and responses to the land deals. The book emerges from an action research project implemented by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, in partnership with non-governmental organisations in five Southern African countries: LandNet in Malawi, Kuwuka Juventude Desenvolvimento e Advocacia Ambiental in Mozambique, Legal Assistance Centre in Namibia, Zambia Land Alliance in Zambia and Ruzivo Trust in Zimbabwe. The joint project, entitled Commercialisation of Land and ‘Land Grabbing’ in Southern Africa: Implications for Land Rights and Livelihoods in Southern Africa, involved not only documenting what was happening on the ground but also action research, together with the communities, in negotiations, lobbying and meetings with investors and with government institutions.
Mining, capital and dispossession in Limpopo, South Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019) Zamchiya, Phillan
This Working Paper explains the processes by which land, water and other natural resources were seized, and their previous users dispossessed, for the purposes of capital accumulation by Ivanplats platinum mining company in Limpopo, South Africa. The mining firm largely acquired land through non-voluntary mechanisms by disregarding South Africa’s Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act (IPILRA) set to protect the lawful occupiers and users of land. Through detailed empirical examination, I demonstrate how locals in Limpopo experienced dispossession through enclosure of farmland, water sources, grazing fields and cultural shrines, paving the way for accumulation by the mining firm. Beyond productive sources, the mining firm also acquired capital through imposing financial interests on unfair community loans. Corruption, coercion and bribes were useful dispossession tools in a powerful triple alliance of investors, state officials and traditional leaders. This exacerbated the crises of livelihoods for many, especially women, who did not integrate in the new mining wage-labour economy and its entrepreneurial opportunities. I partly agree with scholars who have used some Accumulation by Dispossession (ABD) features to explain this phenomenon. However, it is important to note that dispossession even through economic means and with voluntary consent can also lead to similar dire consequences for the rural poor. In addition, the farmers were not out of capitalist relations of production as implied in the conceptualisation of ABD with its genealogy in primitive accumulation and there was no full rural proletarianisation. Given the nominal welfarist benefits for the locals in this extractivist model of investment, covert, intermediary and overt resistance to land dispossession was rife, though it met with brutal state force making the future unstable and uncertain
Securing Land Tenure for Women and Men Living on Customary Land in Zimbabwe
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) Zamchiya, Phillan; Madhuku, Claris
This policy brief reports on findings from a study investigating the impact of the formalisation of customary land on tenure relations and livelihoods for women and men living in rural Zimbabwe. The research was conducted in Munyokoweri, Mahachi and Kondo villages as well as the Checheche growth point located in Chipinge District, Manicaland Province between 2020 and 2022. The study reached 156 respondents through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. In addition, the researchers conducted a survey of 100 households across the three villages.
Securing Land Tenure for Women Under Mozambique’s Land Administration Programme (Terra Segura)
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-01) Musa, Chilombo; Zamchiya, Phillan; Ntauazi, Clemente; Noyes, Joana
This policy brief reports findings from a study undertaken by researchers at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) investigating the formalisation of customary land and its implications for women’s livelihoods and the security of their land tenure in Mozambique. The research was conducted in two villages in Nhamatanda District, Sofala Province between 2021 and 2022. A total of 63 women in Siluvo and Metuchira villages were reached through in-depth interviews; coordination to learn their life histories; and focus group discussions. In addition, a survey of 140 households across the two villages was conducted.
Securing Tenure for Customary Land Rights Holders in Southern Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) Zamchiya, Phillan
Sistemas agro- alimentares em mutação: O impacto dos grandes agro-investidores sobre o direito à alimentação. Estudos de caso em Moçambique
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2016) Joala, Refiloe; Zamchiya, Phillan; Ntauazi, Clemente; Musole, Patrick; Katebe, Ceasar
Este livro apresenta estudos de caso sobre os sistemas agro-alimentares em mutação na África Austral, no contexto dos grandes investimentos em terra e dos grandes investimentos no campo dos agro-negócios. Ao registar os testemunhos das pessoas locais num contexto rural, com foco particular sobre os pequenos agricultores, esta obra visa proporcionar relatos vívidos das mudanças a nível micro em curso na África Austral no campo dos sistemas agro-alimentares, e reflectir as experiências e as perspectivas das pessoas locais.

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