Department of Geography, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
Fox, R.C., Department of Geography, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa; Chigumira, E., Department of Geography, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa; Rowntree, K.M., Department of Geography, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
The Fast Track Land Reform Programme is the defining instrument for Zimbabwe's future development prospects. In the three-year period from 2000 to 2002, 300,000 families were resettled on 11 million hectares, thus bringing to an end the colonial division of land. The process which displaced the commercial farm workers and farm owners was chaotic, violent and disorderly. Subsequent legislation and government agricultural initiatives have attempted to impose, retroactively, technocratic order to the sweeping changes that have taken place. Our study finds that the dire macro-economic situation coupled with trends of HIV/AIDS prevalence combine, at the local scale, with variable rainfall and poor soils to make commercial agricultural production a difficult proposition. Three case studies in Kadoma District show that there have been multiple outcomes to the resettlement process. In some instances individual households have benefitted in the short term, but this has only occurred where climatic and soil conditions have been particularly favourable. Geography © 2007.