ZIMBABWE’S land reform programme, anchored on the Land Acquisition Act and affirmed by the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No 20) Act, 2013, closed one chapter of our history and opened another.
The redistribution of land addressed a deeply entrenched injustice.
But redistribution was never meant to be the end of the story.
The real test, which we have not confronted with sufficient clarity, is whether land has been transformed to a productive economic asset.
In my view, the debate in Zimbabwe has been framed too narrowly.
We oscillate between defending land reform and critiquing its outcomes, yet we avoid the more difficult question: what system did we build after redistribution and is it capable of generating value?
That is where the real issue lies.
We effectively replaced a co-ordinated commercial agricultural system with a fragmented one, without fully constructing the institutional architecture required to sustain productivity.
- Trabablas missteps can cost govt: AG
- Is land reform delivering real economic value in Zim?
Keep Reading
This is not an argument against land reform; it is an argument about what was left incomplete.
The tenure question illustrates this point sharply.
The State retained control over land while granting use rights to beneficiaries.
That decision was politically rational.
Economically, however, it introduced a structural tension.
Agriculture now operates in a market environment, yet its primary asset, land, remains governed through administrative instruments that are not consistently treated as bankable or transferable in practice.
The result is predictable: investment hesitates, long-term planning weakens and productivity becomes uneven.
But I would caution against reducing the entire problem to tenure insecurity. That diagnosis is too convenient.
The more fundamental issue is that our institutions do not operate as a system.
Land policy, agricultural support, finance and industrial development exist, but they do not converge in practice.
Each function within its own logic and the farmer is left to navigate the gaps between them.
This is why we see a recurring pattern: inputs are distributed, production increases temporarily, but value is not sustained.
It is not because farmers are incapable; it is because the system does not consistently support production beyond the point of harvest.
Without reliable markets, processing capacity and financing structures, output does not translate to economic value.
If we are honest, even the issue of underutilised land has been poorly framed.
It is often presented as failure on the part of beneficiaries.
I see it differently. Underutilisation is frequently a rational response to risk.
Where financing is uncertain, infrastructure is weak and markets are unpredictable, scaling production becomes a gamble.
In such conditions, caution is not inefficiency; it is survival.
So where does this leave us?
Certainly not in a position to reverse land reform nor in a position to continue with incremental adjustments.
What is required is a deliberate shift to a second phase, one that is focused not on access, but on productivity and value.
This begins with making tenure functionally credible.
Not through ideological debates about ownership, but through practical reforms that make land rights enforceable, predictable, and usable within the financial system.
The 99-year lease framework already exists; the challenge is to operationalise it in a manner that financial institutions can rely on.
This is less about changing the law and more about strengthening administration, consistency and trust.
Equally important is rethinking how agriculture is financed.
The current reliance on State-driven programmes is neither sufficient nor sustainable.
What we need is a financing model that shares risk across the State, private sector and development institutions.
More importantly, financing should not depend on land alone.
It should be anchored on production systems, contracts, off-take agreements and value chains that provide predictable income streams.
That is how agriculture becomes investable.
Another area that requires urgent attention is how production itself is organised.
We continue to treat farmers as isolated units, yet evidence on the ground shows that productivity improves where farmers are connected to infrastructure, to markets and to each other.
This points to a practical direction: organising agriculture around clusters where production, processing and logistics are integrated.
Such arrangements are not theoretical; they are already emerging in parts of Zimbabwe.
The task is to recognise them, support them and scale them deliberately.
At the same time, we must confront the issue of co-ordination.
Zimbabwe does not suffer from a shortage of policies; it suffers from a lack of alignment.
Land reform will not deliver economic value if it remains disconnected from industrial policy and market development.
Value addition cannot be an aspiration; it must be structurally embedded in how we organise production and investment.
Climate realities add another layer of urgency.
A system heavily dependent on rainfall cannot sustain consistent productivity.
Expanding irrigation and investing in climate-resilient agriculture is not optional; it is central to making land reform economically viable.
What I am suggesting is not a reinvention of land reform, but a consolidation of it.
The foundations have been laid.
What is missing is the integration of those foundations into a functioning economic system.
That requires less rhetoric and more institutional discipline, clear rules, predictable administration and alignment across sectors.
Land reform has already changed who owns the land.
The question now is whether we are prepared to do the harder work of ensuring that land produces value.
That shift will not come from a single policy intervention.
It will come from recognising that land, finance, production and markets are interconnected and designing our institutions accordingly.
If we get this right, land reform will not only remain a symbol of justice; it will become a driver of economic transformation.
If we do not, we risk preserving the gains of redistribution while leaving its economic promise only partially fulfilled.
