IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revape/v46y2019i159p33-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family farms and the markets: examining the level of market-oriented production 15 years after the Zimbabwe Fast Track Land Reform programme

Author

Listed:
  • Rangarirai Gavin Muchetu

Abstract

Small family farmers aim to secure food through own production, and the surplus is only sold to finance productive and reproductive investments. The Fast Track Land Reform programme (FTLRP) caused a dramatic increase in the number of family farms, with approximately 180,000 families being resettled on 70% of agricultural land previously held by about 4500 commercial white farmers. This increased demand for agricultural capital goods, thus putting pressure on the under-resourced government of Zimbabwe, which had to provide inputs considering the FTLRP and capital outflows induced by the economic meltdown. The study tracks and maps out the position of family farmers in Zimbabwe with respect to the agricultural inputs and outputs markets over 15 years of land reform implementation. Specifically, the study utilises the SMAIAS 2013–14 Household Survey to calculate commercialisation indices for major agricultural crops in Zimbabwe. Commercialisation involves the creation of mechanisms that encourage farmers’ active participation and integration in the commodity markets. The survey results show that participation is found to be highly differentiated, with small-scale producers participating the least. More farmers were more active in the inputs markets than they were in the outputs markets, thus implying a perennial reduction of farmers’ incomes and productive asset investment capacity. Additionally, the study provides structural transformative policy alternatives for improving production and rural household income to reduce poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Rangarirai Gavin Muchetu, 2019. "Family farms and the markets: examining the level of market-oriented production 15 years after the Zimbabwe Fast Track Land Reform programme," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(159), pages 33-54, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:46:y:2019:i:159:p:33-54
    DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2019.1609919
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03056244.2019.1609919
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03056244.2019.1609919?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:46:y:2019:i:159:p:33-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CREA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.