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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the implications of agrarian policy trajectories on small-to-medium scale farmers. Using a critical agrarian studies and a political economy approach it shows that neo-liberal approaches to agrarian policy making are impacting on production, social reproduction and accumulation.

Paper long abstract:

More than two decades after Zimbabwe’s controversial and radical fast track land reform programme (FTLRP), the issue remains topical. Land tenure, redistribution and rights which were at the heart of the FTLRP continue to dominate the agrarian studies discourse. In recent years, the political transition witnessed in the country which ushered in neo-liberal oriented agrarian policy trajectories and new politics of land have reignited debates on the political economy of the land; politics of dispossession; production and social reproduction dynamics; class formation; social differentiation and accumulation. Agrarian dynamics have been further compounded by the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and an interlocking crises which have found expression in the country’s socio-economic, political, and ecological landscape. The challenges being experienced are catastrophic for a country heavily reliant on the agrarian sector and they have received limited scholarly attention. To fill this research gap, this paper employs field based empirical evidence gathered in rural Zimbabwe to explore how the country’s contemporary agrarian policy trajectories under the five-year development plan- National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025) are directly impacting on the production, reproduction and social reproduction activities of small to medium scale farmers. Using the lenses of critical agrarian studies and a political economy approach, the paper centrally argues that neo-liberal approaches to policy making in Zimbabwe’s agrarian sector are shaping land tenure, ownership, production and accumulation patterns. Social reproduction dynamics, class formation and social relations are also shown as being impacted on by agrarian policy trajectories with diverse consequences on citizens.