Land ownership in Zimbabwe - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
March 16, 2018
Summary
LAND ownership and distribution has been at the centre of disputes in Zimbabwe since pre-colonial days. This escalated through land appropriation by the white minority, leading to the war of liberation, whose major raison d’etre was the transfer of land ownership to the majority blacks.
Zimbabwe, whose economy is agro-based, has 39.6 million hectares land area.
The FAO says only 8.24% (4.31 million hectares) of it is arable, with 0.33% under permanent crops.
Land ownership remains a major issue in Zimbabwe, where nearly 70% of the population is rural and dependent on agriculture.
Background
British settlers colonized Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) for 90 years. The era witnessed massive dispossession of black landowners through a system of repression, segregation, and violence (see Table below).
By 1914, 23,730 white settlers owned about 19 million acres of prime land, while about 752,000 Africans had been pushed to poor marginal 21,390,080 acres.
The white settlers took the best land (51%), leaving the Africans with infertile lands (22%), while the remaining state land (27%) was set aside for forestry and national parks.
In 1965, the white minority government unilaterally declared itself independent from British control, vowing there would be no black majority rule. This forced the nationalist movements to launch a guerrilla war, culminating in independence in 1980.
Land reform in post-independent Zimbabwe
Post independence land reform sought to resettle the black majority from unproductive native reserves by enactment.
Land reform phases:
Land ownership map
white farmers and black farmers
(excluding grazing)
One study showed that the majority of beneficiaries were from overpopulated villages, 6.7% former farm workers, ex-mine workers, 18% from urban areas, 16.5%, civil servants, 4.8% business people, 3.7% security service, trained agriculturalists and women, who constitute 51% of the population.
Land Tenure
Today, Zimbabwe has multi-form tenure, with multiple tenure types applying in the different area of land (freehold, lease, permit, communal and state land).
Post-settler economy pattern persists in Zimbabwe, with large-scale farms retaining freehold, granted to white settlers during colonization, while former tribal lands became de jure state-owned lands. Those communal areas have de facto rights delegated to communities  (including chiefs), under the oversight of rural district councils.
The large scale and small scale commercial farmers occupy about 32% of the country’s land under individual land ownership which guarantees exclusive property rights and full control and responsibility over the land and infrastructure. Statutory provisions such as control over public watercourses and wildlife may limit the exclusive control.
The Communal Areas Act vests powers in the President for its occupation and utilization and is applicable to 42% of Zimbabwe’s land where about 70% of the country’s population resides.
Rural district councils allocate land to qualified persons on behalf of the State.
Post-independence Zimbabwe introduced non-titled Resettlement Areas, covering 10% of the country to de-congest the communal areas. The resettlement area was established under a restrictive permit system, while following 2000, offer letters (substituted by land permits) and 99-year leases were proposed, with a 25 year concession proposed for wildlife conservancies.
The State further gazetted 15% of the country’s land as protected forests (2%) and national parks (13%).
Currently, regulations restrict multiple farm ownership and encourage wide distribution of land based on commitment to social justice and the distribution of national productive assets as enshrined in the cross party agreed national Constitution
Conclusion
Land remains a central economic resource in Zimbabwe. Indigenous (black) Zimbabweans own 96% of the agricultural land. This excludes company, church and corporate estates (2,041 million hectares) and transitional/unallocated land (2,684 million hectares).
Factsheet compiled by Farayi Chimbindi, a freelance journalist and media consultant.
agricultureindependencelandreform