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Abstract

Imposition of colonial rule in Zimbabwe saw millions of hectares of productive land expropriated from the native inhabitants relegating them to perpetual poverty and deprivation. Out of this predicament, native Zimbabweans resorted to armed struggle to reclaim their land in two historical periods leading to independence in 1980. Consequently, land repossession was a primary grievance during the armed struggle and thus, land redistribution was high on the agenda at the attainment of independence but not much was done in the first two decades. In the first decade, obligatory clauses in the Lancaster House constitution effectively made popular land reform impossible. The neo-liberal economic project, Economic Structural Adjustment Program adopted by the government of Zimbabwe in the 1990s further suffocated even timid efforts at meaningful land reform. However, the government embarked on compulsory acquisition in the year 2000 following widespread farm invasions and protests. 2006 marks six years since Zimbabwe's implementation of fast track land reform that saw thousands of formerly landless and crowded families living in perils of poverty resettled. This paper unearths the linkages between access to productive land and reducing susceptibility and vulnerability to poverty and its contribution to national food security in the first six years of implementation. The paper goes miles in providing tentative answers and insights to the relevance of land redistribution in poverty alleviation, putting the agrarian reform question in its rightful position in development thinking in modem agro-based economies that once formed a colonial settler state within the overall framework of sustainable development.

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