The impact of land redistribution on commercial farm workers

Abstract

The position of farm worker communities in Zimbabwe vis-a-vis the land reform process can be best understood from a historical perspective. Zimbabwe’s colonisation in the 1890s created the conditions that still influence the pattern of income and wealth distribution in the country A settier minority took control of the country’s resources of wealth, in particular land and the associated mineral resources but also access to income generation and wealth, especially through education. The creation of native reserves in 1898 gave birth to the dual agrarian structures that have been in existence for the first twenty years of independence and remained a major source of poverty and inequitable income and wealth distribution. The Land Apportionment Act of 1930, which divided the country into white land and native land, further consolidated this process.