10 - The Food Security, Employment and Migration Nexus in Zimbabwe Post-land Reform: A Gender Perspective
Africa Development,
Vol. 47 No. 3 (2022): Africa Development: Special Issue on Agrarian Change, Food Security, Migration and Sustainable Development in Senegal and Zimbabwe
Abstract
Serious inequalities in asset distribution in many developing countries consistently remain a key driver of household food insecurity, high unemployment, poverty and, ultimately, rural outmigration. Yet, the employment-retaining capacity of agriculture and its counter to rural-urban, including international, migration has been proven in many contexts. The 2000 land reform programme in Zimbabwe saw between 12 and18 per cent of women gaining access to land in their own right. Using a transformative social policy approach, the article explores the extent to which land reform as a social policy instrument enhanced household food security and rural incomes and opened new employment opportunities for beneficiaries relative to non-land reform beneficiary households. Highlighting the migration-social-policy nexus, I argue for land reform as a restraint to not only rural-urban but also international migration. Data gathered through a mixed methods ethnographic approach, combining in-depth interviews and surveys, and analysed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, indicates that access to agricultural land and water can not only reduce but reverse rural to urban, including economically driven, international, migration. This suggests that continuous agrarianisation, in the Zimbabwean context, remains one plausible pathway to tackle the triple challenges of household food insecurity, unemployment and rural outmigration.
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- Adesina, J., 2009, Social policy in sub-Saharan Africa: A glance in the rear-view mirror, International Journal of Social Welfare, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 37–51.
- Adesina, J., 2011, Beyond the social protection paradigm: Social policy in Africa’s development, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 454–470.
- African Development Bank (AfDB), 2016, Jobs for youth in Africa: Catalysing youth opportunity across Africa, African Development Bank, South Africa.
- Amanor-Wilks, D-E., 2009, Land, labour and gendered livelihoods in a ‘peasant’ and a ‘settler’ economy, Feminist Africa, Issue 12, pp. 31–50.
- Ataç, I. and Rosenberger, S., 2019, Social Policies as a Tool of Migration Control, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 1–10.
- Ba, C. O., Bourgoin, J. and Diop, D., 2017, The fluidity of internal migration as an answer to local constraints, in Mercandalli, S. and Losch, B., eds, 2017, Rural Africa in motion. Dynamics and drivers of migration South of the Sahara, Rome: FAO and CIRAD, pp. 32–33.
- Borras, S., and Franco, C., 2010, Contemporary discourses and contestations around pro-poor land policies and land governance, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 10, pp. 1–32.
- Bracking, S., and Sachikonye, L., 2006, Remittances, Poverty Reduction and the Informalisation of the Household Well-being in Zimbabwe, Working Paper No 45, Global Poverty Research Group, Oxford.
- Bryceson, D. F., 2002a, The scramble in Africa: Reorienting rural livelihoods, World Development, Vol. 30, pp. 725–739.
- Bryceson, D. F., 2002b, Multiplex livelihoods in rural Africa: Recasting the terms and conditions of gainful employment, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 40, pp. 1–28.
- Burgess, R., 2001, Land and Welfare: Theory and Evidence from China, Department of Economics and STICERD, London School of Economics.
- Chipenda, C. and Tom, T., 2019, The generational question after land reform in Zimbabwe: A social reproductive perspective, African Journal of Economic Management Studies, Vol, 2.
- Chiweshe, M. K., 2015 Women and emergence of grassroots institutions on post- Fast Track Land Reform farms in Zimbabwe, Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 40–53.
- Choithani, C., 2018, Understanding the linkages between migration and household food security in India, Geographical Research, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 192–205.
- De Jager, N. and Musuva, C., 2016, The influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa: A crisis of governance that spills over, Africa Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 15–30. Dzingirai, V., Egger, E-V., Landau, L., Litchfield, J., Mutopo, P. and Nyikahadzoi, K., 2015, Migration out of poverty in Zimbabwe, Working Paper 29 September 2015, Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.
- FAO, IFAD, IOM and WFP, 2018, The linkages between migration, agriculture, food security and rural development, Rome.
- Africa Development, Volume XLVII, No. 3, 2022
- Hebinck, P., 2018, De-/re-agrarianisation: Global perspectives, Journal of Rural Studies, May, Editorial.
- Knoll, A., Rampa, F., Torres, C., Molina, P. B. and Cascone, N., 2017, The nexus between food and nutrition security, and migration: Clarifying the debate and charting a way forward, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) Discussion Paper No. 212, May 2017.
- Laborde, D., Bizikova, L., Lallemant, T. and Smaller, C., 2017, What is the link between hunger and migration? International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Lowder, S., Skoet, J. and Raney, T., 2016, The number, size, and distribution of farms, smallholder farms, and family farms worldwide, World Development, Vol. 87, pp. 16–29.
- Manamere, K. T., 2014, Majoni-joni – wayward criminals or a good catch? African Diaspora, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 89–113.
- Milone, P.and Ventura, F., 2010, Networking the Rural, the Future of Green Regions in Europe, Assen: Royal Van Gorcum.
- Mkandawire, T., 2004, Introduction. Social policy in a development context, in Mkandawire, T., ed., Social policy in a development context, Basingstoke: UNRISD/Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–33.
- Mkandawire, T., 2007, Transformative social policy and innovation in developing countries, The European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 13–29. Mkandawire, T., 2014, Lessons from the social policy and development of South Korea: An interrogation, in Yi, I. and Mkandawire, T., eds, Learning from the South Korean developmental success: Effective developmental cooperation and synergistic institutions and policies, Basingstoke: UNRISD/Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11–30.
- Moyo, S., 2011, Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 493–531.
- Moyo, S., Chambati, W.,Murisa,T.,Siziba, D., Dangwa, C., Mujeyi, K. and Nyoni, N., 2009, Fast track land reform baseline study in Zimbabwe: Trends and tendencies, 2005/06, Harare: African Institute for Agrarian Studies.
- Moyo, S. and Makumbe, J., 2000, The Socioeconomic Environment and NGOs, in Moyo, S., Makumbe, J. and Raftopoulos, B., eds, NGOs, The State and Politics, Harare: SAPES Books, pp 7–20.
- Mutopo, P., 2014, ‘Belonging and rural livelihoods: Women’s access to land and non- permanent
- mobility at Merrivale Farm, Mwenezi District.’ Erdkunde, Vol. 68, No. 3 (July–September 2014), pp. 197–207.
- Mutopo, P., Manjengwa, J. and Chiweshe, M., 2014, Shifting gender dimensions and rural livelihoods after Zimbabwe fast track land reform programme, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 45–61.
- Potts, D., 2010, Internal migration in Zimbabwe: The impact of livelihood destruction in rural and urban Areas, in Crush, J. and Tevera, D., eds, Zimbabwe’sExodus: Crisis, Migration and Survival, Cape Town: SAMP Publication.
- Tekwa: The Food Security, Employment and Migration Nexus in Zimbabwe 251
- Poulton, C. Davies, R., Matshe, I. and Urey, I., 2002, A review of Zimbabwe’s agricultural economic policies: 1980 –2000, ADU Working Paper, 02/01 March 2002.
- Raftopoulos, B., 2011, A Study on Migration and Remittances in Matebeleland, Zimbabwe, Cape Town: Solidarity Peace Trust.
- Rawal, V., 2008, Ownership holdings of land in rural India: putting the record straight, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 10, pp. 43–47.
- Sadiddin, A., Cattaneo, A., Cirillo, M. and Miller, M., 2019, Food insecurity as a determinant of international migration: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, Food Security, Vol. 11, pp. 515–530.
- Scoones, I., Marongwe, N., Mavedzenge, B., Murimbarimba, F., Mahenehene, J. and Sukume, C., 2010, Zimbabwe’s land reform: Myths and realities, Harare: Weaver Press.
- Scoones, I., Marongwe, N., Mavedzenge, B., Murimbarimba, F., Mahenehene, J. and Sukume, C., 2012, Livelihoods after Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Understanding Processes of Rural Differentiation, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 12, pp. 503–527.
- Sibanda, V. and Makwata, R., 2017, Zimbabwe Post Independence Economic Policies: A Critical Review, Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
- Stone, G. V., 2010, Malthus, Agribusiness, and the Death of the Peasantry, Current Anthropology, Vol. 42, No. 4.
- Tavuyanago, B., 2017, ‘Our fathers and grandfathers were born here...’: Shangaan eviction experiences from the Gonarezhou National Park, 1957–1968, Historia, Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 46–67.
- Tekwa, N., 2020, Gender, land reform and welfare outcomes. A case study of Chiredzi district, Zimbabwe, PhD thesis, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
- Tekwa, N., and Tekwa, H., 2022, Gender, household food security and neoliberal decimation of the grain producing peasantry in Zimbabwe, in Mazwi, F. Helliker K. and Mudimu G. T., eds, Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa – Neoliberal Restructuring, Heidelberg: Springer Nature.
- Tom, T., 2020, The wider vision of social policy: An analysis of the transformative role of the fast track land reform programme in Zvimba District, Zimbabwe, PhD Thesis, University of South Africa.
- Van der Ploeg, J. D., 2017, Differentiation: Old controversies, new insights, Journal of Peasant Studies, pp. 1–36.
- Utete, C. M. B., 2003, Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee, under the Chairmanship of Dr Charles M.B. Utete, Volumes 1 and 2: Main report to His Excellency the President of The Republic of Zimbabwe, Presidential Land Review Committee (PLRC), Harare.
- Zhou, G., 2000, Public enterprise sector reforms in Zimbabwe: A macro analytical approach, Zambezia, Vol. 27, No 2, pp. 195–219.
References
Adesina, J., 2009, Social policy in sub-Saharan Africa: A glance in the rear-view mirror, International Journal of Social Welfare, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 37–51.
Adesina, J., 2011, Beyond the social protection paradigm: Social policy in Africa’s development, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 454–470.
African Development Bank (AfDB), 2016, Jobs for youth in Africa: Catalysing youth opportunity across Africa, African Development Bank, South Africa.
Amanor-Wilks, D-E., 2009, Land, labour and gendered livelihoods in a ‘peasant’ and a ‘settler’ economy, Feminist Africa, Issue 12, pp. 31–50.
Ataç, I. and Rosenberger, S., 2019, Social Policies as a Tool of Migration Control, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 1–10.
Ba, C. O., Bourgoin, J. and Diop, D., 2017, The fluidity of internal migration as an answer to local constraints, in Mercandalli, S. and Losch, B., eds, 2017, Rural Africa in motion. Dynamics and drivers of migration South of the Sahara, Rome: FAO and CIRAD, pp. 32–33.
Borras, S., and Franco, C., 2010, Contemporary discourses and contestations around pro-poor land policies and land governance, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 10, pp. 1–32.
Bracking, S., and Sachikonye, L., 2006, Remittances, Poverty Reduction and the Informalisation of the Household Well-being in Zimbabwe, Working Paper No 45, Global Poverty Research Group, Oxford.
Bryceson, D. F., 2002a, The scramble in Africa: Reorienting rural livelihoods, World Development, Vol. 30, pp. 725–739.
Bryceson, D. F., 2002b, Multiplex livelihoods in rural Africa: Recasting the terms and conditions of gainful employment, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 40, pp. 1–28.
Burgess, R., 2001, Land and Welfare: Theory and Evidence from China, Department of Economics and STICERD, London School of Economics.
Chipenda, C. and Tom, T., 2019, The generational question after land reform in Zimbabwe: A social reproductive perspective, African Journal of Economic Management Studies, Vol, 2.
Chiweshe, M. K., 2015 Women and emergence of grassroots institutions on post- Fast Track Land Reform farms in Zimbabwe, Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 40–53.
Choithani, C., 2018, Understanding the linkages between migration and household food security in India, Geographical Research, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 192–205.
De Jager, N. and Musuva, C., 2016, The influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa: A crisis of governance that spills over, Africa Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 15–30. Dzingirai, V., Egger, E-V., Landau, L., Litchfield, J., Mutopo, P. and Nyikahadzoi, K., 2015, Migration out of poverty in Zimbabwe, Working Paper 29 September 2015, Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.
FAO, IFAD, IOM and WFP, 2018, The linkages between migration, agriculture, food security and rural development, Rome.
Africa Development, Volume XLVII, No. 3, 2022
Hebinck, P., 2018, De-/re-agrarianisation: Global perspectives, Journal of Rural Studies, May, Editorial.
Knoll, A., Rampa, F., Torres, C., Molina, P. B. and Cascone, N., 2017, The nexus between food and nutrition security, and migration: Clarifying the debate and charting a way forward, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) Discussion Paper No. 212, May 2017.
Laborde, D., Bizikova, L., Lallemant, T. and Smaller, C., 2017, What is the link between hunger and migration? International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Lowder, S., Skoet, J. and Raney, T., 2016, The number, size, and distribution of farms, smallholder farms, and family farms worldwide, World Development, Vol. 87, pp. 16–29.
Manamere, K. T., 2014, Majoni-joni – wayward criminals or a good catch? African Diaspora, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 89–113.
Milone, P.and Ventura, F., 2010, Networking the Rural, the Future of Green Regions in Europe, Assen: Royal Van Gorcum.
Mkandawire, T., 2004, Introduction. Social policy in a development context, in Mkandawire, T., ed., Social policy in a development context, Basingstoke: UNRISD/Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–33.
Mkandawire, T., 2007, Transformative social policy and innovation in developing countries, The European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 13–29. Mkandawire, T., 2014, Lessons from the social policy and development of South Korea: An interrogation, in Yi, I. and Mkandawire, T., eds, Learning from the South Korean developmental success: Effective developmental cooperation and synergistic institutions and policies, Basingstoke: UNRISD/Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11–30.
Moyo, S., 2011, Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 493–531.
Moyo, S., Chambati, W.,Murisa,T.,Siziba, D., Dangwa, C., Mujeyi, K. and Nyoni, N., 2009, Fast track land reform baseline study in Zimbabwe: Trends and tendencies, 2005/06, Harare: African Institute for Agrarian Studies.
Moyo, S. and Makumbe, J., 2000, The Socioeconomic Environment and NGOs, in Moyo, S., Makumbe, J. and Raftopoulos, B., eds, NGOs, The State and Politics, Harare: SAPES Books, pp 7–20.
Mutopo, P., 2014, ‘Belonging and rural livelihoods: Women’s access to land and non- permanent
mobility at Merrivale Farm, Mwenezi District.’ Erdkunde, Vol. 68, No. 3 (July–September 2014), pp. 197–207.
Mutopo, P., Manjengwa, J. and Chiweshe, M., 2014, Shifting gender dimensions and rural livelihoods after Zimbabwe fast track land reform programme, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 45–61.
Potts, D., 2010, Internal migration in Zimbabwe: The impact of livelihood destruction in rural and urban Areas, in Crush, J. and Tevera, D., eds, Zimbabwe’sExodus: Crisis, Migration and Survival, Cape Town: SAMP Publication.
Tekwa: The Food Security, Employment and Migration Nexus in Zimbabwe 251
Poulton, C. Davies, R., Matshe, I. and Urey, I., 2002, A review of Zimbabwe’s agricultural economic policies: 1980 –2000, ADU Working Paper, 02/01 March 2002.
Raftopoulos, B., 2011, A Study on Migration and Remittances in Matebeleland, Zimbabwe, Cape Town: Solidarity Peace Trust.
Rawal, V., 2008, Ownership holdings of land in rural India: putting the record straight, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 10, pp. 43–47.
Sadiddin, A., Cattaneo, A., Cirillo, M. and Miller, M., 2019, Food insecurity as a determinant of international migration: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, Food Security, Vol. 11, pp. 515–530.
Scoones, I., Marongwe, N., Mavedzenge, B., Murimbarimba, F., Mahenehene, J. and Sukume, C., 2010, Zimbabwe’s land reform: Myths and realities, Harare: Weaver Press.
Scoones, I., Marongwe, N., Mavedzenge, B., Murimbarimba, F., Mahenehene, J. and Sukume, C., 2012, Livelihoods after Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Understanding Processes of Rural Differentiation, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 12, pp. 503–527.
Sibanda, V. and Makwata, R., 2017, Zimbabwe Post Independence Economic Policies: A Critical Review, Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
Stone, G. V., 2010, Malthus, Agribusiness, and the Death of the Peasantry, Current Anthropology, Vol. 42, No. 4.
Tavuyanago, B., 2017, ‘Our fathers and grandfathers were born here...’: Shangaan eviction experiences from the Gonarezhou National Park, 1957–1968, Historia, Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 46–67.
Tekwa, N., 2020, Gender, land reform and welfare outcomes. A case study of Chiredzi district, Zimbabwe, PhD thesis, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
Tekwa, N., and Tekwa, H., 2022, Gender, household food security and neoliberal decimation of the grain producing peasantry in Zimbabwe, in Mazwi, F. Helliker K. and Mudimu G. T., eds, Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa – Neoliberal Restructuring, Heidelberg: Springer Nature.
Tom, T., 2020, The wider vision of social policy: An analysis of the transformative role of the fast track land reform programme in Zvimba District, Zimbabwe, PhD Thesis, University of South Africa.
Van der Ploeg, J. D., 2017, Differentiation: Old controversies, new insights, Journal of Peasant Studies, pp. 1–36.
Utete, C. M. B., 2003, Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee, under the Chairmanship of Dr Charles M.B. Utete, Volumes 1 and 2: Main report to His Excellency the President of The Republic of Zimbabwe, Presidential Land Review Committee (PLRC), Harare.
Zhou, G., 2000, Public enterprise sector reforms in Zimbabwe: A macro analytical approach, Zambezia, Vol. 27, No 2, pp. 195–219.