Zimbabwe had one of the most successful land reform program in history. Time to restart it.

[HamdenRice]

<This was a response to another post about Zim, but it was a bit OT in that thread, and moreover, I thought that many of you might be interested in the relatively unknown history of that country, and the slightly hopeful turn of events there recently. I've been seeing Zimbabwean friends in Brooklyn a lot lately, so I've been thinking about that country a lot lately, and why it's time to bring them back into the community of nations.>

From roughly the early 1980s through the mid 1990s, Zimbabwe had one of the world's most successful land reform programs. Commentators from across the political spectrum analyzed it and held it up as a model for other countries to follow -- from the ANC staffed South African Department of Land Affairs on the left, to the World Bank on the right, to the British overseas development council, everyone who analyzed it was impressed.

The program involved the compensated expropriation of land from the bloated, inefficient, "white" farm sector. These farmers had farms of anywhere between 2,000 to 15,000 acres. They rarely used most of that land, and often held the rest as game reserves, which they charged wealthy overseas adventurers large fees to shoot exotic animals. They also spent scarce foreign exchange on tractors, parts, fuel and other inputs.

In the tradition of southern African white farmers, they did not actually do physical labor, but hired African farm laborers to do the work -- farm laborers who had the skills to carry out farming on their own, if most of the Africans' best land had not been expropriated and turned over to whites from the early to mid 1900s.

According to the 1979 Lancaster House settlement of the Zimbabwean civil war, these farmers were targeted for expropriation and land reform, with the compensation to be paid in British pounds sterling or American dollars. Because of the scarcity of foreign exchange, the compensation was to be funded by the British and American governments.

The farms were distributed to tens of thousands of skilled African farmers, many of them resettled from Zimbabwe's impoverished, crowded black reservations, or "reserves" or "tribal areas." Each white farm could accommodate dozens or even hundreds of small scale black commercial farmers, who used less capital intensive and more labor intensive and animal intensive methods to grow much more food and goods per acre.

By the early 1990s, small scale black farmers were producing more food and agricultural goods than Zimbabwe's white farmers, on both an aggregate, value added, and per acre basis. Human development index studies of resettled black farmers showed that by almost every measure, resettled farmers had dramatically improved their standard of living, and in particular the well-being of women and children had increased.

It's too bad the British and Americans cut off funding for Zimbabwe's land reform program. In a fit of pique, the British and Americans ended the program over their concerns about corruption, the increasingly anti-Democratic drift of Mugabe's politics and the diversion of some of the expropriated farms to wealthy Mugabe supporters through corruption.

Without dollars and pounds sterling provided by the British and Americans, it became obviously impossible to continue the land reform program as envisioned in the Lancaster House agreement, which is to say, compensated in international currency.

The cut off of British and American funding for Zimbabwe's land reform program is the excuse Mugabe gave for then turning to unorganized, uncompensated and ultimately unsuccessful land reform through land seizure and his increasingly dictatorial and irrational stances.

Yesterday, however, the leading expert on Zimbabwe in the United States, Jeffrey Herbst, wrote an op-ed in the NY Times calling for a resumption of aid to Zimbabwe and the re-integration of Zimbabwe into the community of nations, because Mugabe has finally formed a coalition government with his long term opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change and has appointed Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28mills.html

Op-Ed Contributors

Bring Zimbabwe In From the Cold

By GREG MILLS and JEFFREY HERBST
Published: May 27, 2009

AFTER years of rightly criticizing President Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe, Western countries now face a different, and difficult, set of decisions.

Since February, Zimbabwe has operated under a unity government led by Mr. Mugabe with the opposition’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as prime minister. Had last year’s elections been free and fair, Mr. Tsvangirai would have been elected president, but instead of continuing to contest the results he eventually agreed to serve as prime minister. The transition has not been smooth; cabinet posts have been divided up awkwardly, while many people inside and outside the country have criticized Mr. Tsvangirai for seemingly being co-opted by Mr. Mugabe.

As a result, Western governments have been standoffish even though the unity government has taken important steps, notably lowering Zimbabwe’s 231 million percent inflation by abandoning the Zimbabwean dollar in favor of the American dollar and other foreign currencies. Last week, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States wasn’t ready to resume aid to Zimbabwe and urged the ouster of Mr. Mugabe, while other Western donors have said they will not provide significant development assistance until there is firm evidence that the power-sharing agreement is working. Human Rights Watch has gone further by arguing that development aid should not be released until there are “irreversible changes on human rights, the rule of law and accountability.”

The reluctance of Western governments and human rights groups to embrace the current Zimbabwean government is understandable. There is, in particular, no real reason to believe that Mr. Mugabe, after decades of dictatorial rule and abuse, has suddenly embraced multiparty democracy. If he had, after all, he would not be president now.

But Zimbabwe may well be a case where the best is the enemy of the good. Mr. Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, went into the unity government with its eyes open. “We had won the election but we did not have the support of the military,” Mr. Tsvangirai told us this month in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. “We did not want to be the authors of chaos. Instead we need to soft-land the crisis, stabilize the situation through peace and stability and democratic consolidation.” Accordingly, he views Mr. Mugabe as “both part of the problem and part of the solution: we cannot untangle the tentacles of the state without him.”

<More at the link>

[Irreverend IX]

1. The most successful land reform program in history...

And in other news, Big Brother has increased the chocolate ration from 3 grams to 2 grams.

[HamdenRice]

2. You are probably think of what happened after Mugabe began seizing farms

But almost every one who looked at the orderly program from the early 80s until the mid 90s agrees that it was highly successful and a model for other countries.

That's why I posted this. I'm sure it will be met with disbelief, but that's a result of lack of knowledge.

Here are a few good articles if you can track them down:

B. Kinsey (1999), "Land reform, growth and equity: Emerging evidence from Zimbabwe’s resettlement programme", Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 25 pp.2 - .

S. Moyo (2000), "The political economy of land acquisition and distribution in Zimbabwe", Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 26 pp.1 - .

[yodoobo]

15. Started well, ended badly

No. I don't believe that we should be emulating Mugabe.

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. The right wing just don't want to know. It's the old, old story: the West thwarts the good,

and turns it into the monstrous. Hitler was their baby, too. And the second Russian Revolution, in which the organised-crime kleptocracy took over, and nonegenarian "babushkas" were fated to sell their remaining baubles by the side of the road. How it thrilled the hearts of the great corporate malefactors of the West. Until a certain Vladiir Putin decided enough was enough.

If the West had responded positively after the Russian Revolution, both camps might have learnt form each other, and the history of Communism in the West might even have been re-Christianised, and what existed of Christianity in the West might have been reinforced. The last thing the fearful monied classes in the West would have wanted.

Look at France. This is a country that is nominally an atheist Republic, but in 2007 was 85-90% Christian (14% higher than the UK, and 7% higher than the US):

'EX-PATS
Brits love "Ooh la la"

More than 200,000 Brits who quit the UK for life in France claim that quality of life is higher across the channel.' (On edit: What with all those taxes? Say it's not so... Shouldn't we in the UK, with our fabled trickle-down economic policy, have been in the best position to weather this economic depression, and had our country turned into the envy of Europe? What happened?)

'Two thirds felt that France captures the essence of the 60s and 70s, according to the biggest study of ex-pats. And 72% said France has better standards of behaviour than Britain (Me: There's a surprise!), while 68% enjoyed its strong family values. Most also felt there was less crime and stress.'

'Michael Streeter, editor of TheFrenchPaper, which did the survey, said: "One of the main reasons Brits move to France is because it's a place where community still exists.'

This was a brief item in today's Daily Mirror (UK). Just found the link:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/29/brits-loving-ooh-la-la-115875-21397452/

[On the Road]

3. I Don,t Know About the Earlier Days of the Program

but Paul Theroux had a much dıfferent experıence a couple of years ago when he wrote the African travel book 'Dark Star.' Theroux learned Swahili in the Peace Corps in the 60s - has spent a lot of time in Africa, and is not someone who I would expect to be a voice for the right.

White farmers are basically having their lands taken over by squatters without compensation and with the support of the government. The new farmers do not understand how to farm and as a result food production has dropped and whites have left en masse, many to Zambia.

It is true that the land may have originally been taken from native Africans in the 19th century, but expropriation without compensation does not seem to be the best policy, especially when it is part of an ethnically-based policy. It may have been different 20 years ago, but Mugabe has held power since the 70s.

[HamdenRice]

4. A few things

First, unlike South Africa, expropriation of African land was much more recent. It occurred in the 1900s -- as late as the 1960s -- not in the 19th century (1800s). That's why the demand for land reform was so much stronger -- people living at the time of the war remember having their land taken from them.

I agree that they were completely different programs -- the 1980s through 1990s was very successful, and the seizures were catastrophic.

As for whether Africans knew how to farm, Paul Theroux is probably wrong. Most rural Zimbabweans are skilled farmers. When westerners traveled to Zimbabwe even during the "good" reform years, they tend to misinterpret what they are seeing, not being agricultural development specialists. If you see a white guy in a modern house with a big tractor in one place, and see a black guy with a mule living in a thatched hut in another place, you might conclude that the first guy is more skilled than the second guy.

But the evidence suggests otherwise. Those small scale farmers produced more, both in the aggregate and on a per acre level, than the big farmer. Moreover, they use less expensive inputs (farm animals rather than imported oil).

[On the Road]

5. Thank You` Hamden Rice

I always appreciate your insight.

I would like to be more knowledgable, however, before supporting any program conducted by the Mugabe government.

[HamdenRice]

7. Agreed. He has to go. Hopefully, the MDC will usher him out. nt

[Raskolnik]

6. Leaving aside some of the other issues, it strains credulity to suggest that

small-scale farming using draft animals is more productive on a per acre level than mechanized farming on a larger scale.

It may arguably be more desirable for social reasons in Zimbabwe, but I'm not at all convinced that it produces more food.

[HamdenRice]

9. It's actually a well known phenomenon in agricultural economics

The key is to remember it's not to say that they necessarily produce more in aggregate (although in Zim they did) or at a lower cost; it's that they produce more per acre.

Mechanize agriculture tends to be land extensive, and small scale agriculture is land intensive.

Just think about the difference between agriculture and horticulture (gardening). Horticulture produces more per unit of land, and small scale farmers are in essence engaged in horticulture.

[Raskolnik]

13. Then you're talking about apples and oranges (no pun intended).

I don't really consider it a useful comparison between farms farms producing staple crops to feed the nation to garden plots tended by hand for subsistence and/or hobby. The comparison further breaks down when you acknowledge that you are not factoring in cost.

[HamdenRice]

19. They are not just garden plots. They are commercial farmers

And at the peak of the program, when I say that small scale farmers outproduced the large scale farmers, that was in terms of marketed crop, so they could indeed feed the country.

But your point about cost is very important -- in particular the problem of low labor cost. It's one of the most counter-intuitive and troubling aspect of the small farm advantage.

This phenomenon has been discovered by several prominent economists. The first seems to have been A.V. Chayanov, a non-communist Soviet economist who made a major breakthrough during the "New Economic Period" of the 30s. It was then independently discovered in India in the 1950s (60s?) by Amartya Sen who later became a Nobel winner. Then in the 60s by Clifford Geertz (Indonesia). Then again in the 90s by World Bank economist Hans Binswanger. Each gave it a different name -- Chayanov (self-exploitation or hunger rents), Geertz (agricultural involution) and Binswanger (lumpiness of agricultural inputs).

Each tried to explain why, when there is a level playing field, small scale farmers tend to outcompete large scale farmers and drive large scale farmers out of land markets.

The basic idea is that family farms don't do labor cost accounting and therefore use "too much" labor and reap higher per acre yields, which causes them to be able to purchase land away from large scale farmers. So their success is based on underpaying themselves.

So, yes, there are problems with this as a development strategy.

[Raskolnik]

23. When put in these terms, I don't think we disagree all that much.

But I do think that the issue of whether this is a viable development strategy is central to whether it is wise for Zimbabwe.

[HamdenRice]

26. We're carrying on the same conversation in two subthreads

But yeah, that's the big question. As I said in the other sub thread though, with landlessness and unemployment prevalent, most experts think it's an appropriate strategy for Zim at this time.

[Raskolnik]

28. But I would argue that it is impossible to implement until Mugabe is gone.

And, frankly, not worth attempting.

[HamdenRice]

30. But Mugabe is "half" gone and the opposition is running the government

I think the point of the op ed is that Mugabe has yielded power, and it's important for the rest of the world to help the former opposition party which is now running the show, to succeed and deliver an improved standard of living -- regardless of the fact that they compromised to let Mugabe stay on as president.

If we wait until Mugabe is completely gone, we might end up undermining the democratic movement that has just taken power.

[Raskolnik]

31. I think any land redistribution program attempted while Mugabe is still there...

...whether "half" or not, is going to be hopelessly compromised. I share your optimism that some kind of smooth transition could be possible there, but Mugabe is not gone yet. And, to be very blunt, Obama is not going to be the president with the particular kind of political capital needed to support a continuation of a Mugabe-associated land redistribution program.

[HamdenRice]

32. That's fair enough, but ...

I think Herbst is right that other forms of aid need to begin flowing now so that the MDC is seen to be delivering a better life.

One of the things that is hard for foreigners to recognize or come to terms with is that Mugabe still has some popularity in Zim. Explaining why would take a book, but it has a lot to do with fearmongering about white farmers returning.

The MDC now has majority support, but to win over bigger and bigger majorities of the population, the MDC has to make life better for people right away.

[tabatha]

10. You are theorizing without any factual basis.

Try providing some reasons for your argument.

[Raskolnik]

14. My factual basis is a knowledge of how farms work.

The reason the U.S. is a net exporter of food is because we use mechanized, larger scale farming techniques. Individual gardens tended by hand may produce quite a bit of produce per-acre, but they cost an incredible amount of manual labor for that production, and are not capable of feeding a nation.

[tabatha]

17. You are projecting a US model on a Zim model.

And you have ignored this statement by Hamden:

But the evidence suggests otherwise. Those small scale farmers produced more, both in the aggregate and on a per acre level, than the big farmer. Moreover, they use less expensive inputs (farm animals rather than imported oil).

[Raskolnik]

21. No, I'm projecting the economies of scale and the fact that labor-intensive

small scale gardens are not capable of feeding a nation, and the OP has conceded that his comparisons do not factor in cost.

If you get to remove efficiency from the equation, you can make just about any small-scale subsistence garden look like it is more "productive" than a larger farm designed to maket its crops. But, unfortunately, those small-scale gardens take enormous amounts of manual labor to maintain, and are not sustainable on a scale large enough to feed tens of millions of people.

[HamdenRice]

24. It's not economies of scale

The World Bank has concluded that there are no economies of scale in agriculture beyond a farm the size of what one family using one tractor can manage.

That scale is not a "garden" plot; it's a small commercial farm. They are indeed sustainable -- more so than larger scale farms -- and are able to produce the same surpluses to feed the country. But the drawback is indeed low labor costs, and because it's family labor, therefore low family incomes.

But here's why it works in Zim. In America, kids won't stay on the farm for those implicit wages. In a poor country with high unemployment and landlessness as a result of colonialism, the kids will stay on the farm.

[HamdenRice]

22. I think we agree on labor costs

See my other post about Chayanov, Sen, Geertz, et al.

But that doesn't mean that they can't produce surpluses. The US had small farmers before it had big farms, and it always produced a surplus.

The Chayanov, Geertz, Binswanger theory suggests, however, that big farms didn't emerge in the US because they were more efficient; they emerged because kids of small farmers left for better paying work elsewhere.

[uberllama42]

33. I thought that at first, but the more I think about it

small, personal operations have a number of advantages over large, mechanized farms. Mechanized farms of course require less labor and can manage some impressive economies of scale, but they usually rely on monocropping. They grow one crop with a single yield every year. Small farms rely on multicropping, growing two or three crops on the same plot at the same time. It's much easier to use your own biowaste to fertilize the land, and some arrangements can manage more than one yield a year. Monocropping depletes the soil much faster, requiring either complicated crop rotation or artificial fertilizer.

I'm no expert, but these are a few things I've read about that I think make the difference.

[HamdenRice]

34. That's why in some ways, it is more like horticulture (gardening)

As you can see we got into a bit of a debate about this. It is not actually horticulture, but there are aspects of small scale commercial farming that are like horticulture, and therefore are better at creating a cycle of growth, compost, animal, plant, interconnectedness.

Plus the studies from both the left (S. Africa Dept. of Land Affairs) and the right (World Bank) come to the same conclusions -- that small scale is simply more efficient.

[tabatha]

11. And the negative impact on the soil was far less.

[tabatha]

8. but expropriation without compensation does not seem to be the best policy

Absolutely!! - the black farmers were NEVER compensated for the land taken from them by the whites. DO you know the history of the land grab by the whites from the Matabele in Zimbabwe? It was utter fraud with absolutely no compensation whatsoever. The land grab in reverse by the blacks in recent years was no worse.

[HamdenRice]

12. I wouldn't go so far as to say one expropriation justifies the other

<Sorry, I think I initially misunderstood what you wrote, so I've edited this.>

Compensated expropriation of whites was important simply because they did have a deal that ended the civil war and the first land reform system was orderly and working well.

But I do think that many Americans tend to see the Zimbabwe land issue through the lens of our experience or even South African experience -- namely that the expropriation took place generations ago, during "frontier wars."

The land issue was so bitter in Zimbabwe because the white government was still taking land well into the mid twentieth century, and Zimbabweans could actually see white farmers living on land that they used to own.

That's why you are correct that the claims of expropriation without compensation being unfair to whites falls on deaf ears in Zimbabwe.

[tabatha]

16. Well, I know of a family in South Africa who had

their home taken from them after 1948, during the apartheid years when mass moving of blacks into homelands occurred - the underlying basis of apartheid, move blacks and whites apart. But possibly it was more urban than rural in later years.

[HamdenRice]

20. Oh, of course you're right. I lived in SA in the 80s and knew many who lost land...

as recently as the 80s. I even interviewed the people of Mathopestad, the last attempted forced removal in the country, that successfully stopped it nationwide.

Just saying that the bulk of land losses in SA were much earlier (even before the 1913 Natives Land Act), while the bulk of land losses in Zim were in the 20th century.

[On the Road]

27. The Fact That it Was More Recent

per Hamden Rice, into the 1960s, makes reverse expropriation more understandable. However the land is not being given to its rightful owners. There are forms of redistribution worth pursuing. Supporting the wrong ones can be as disastrous as the political fallout from certain parts of the left sympathizing with the Bolsheviks.

[Joanne98]

25. Colonists trying to get their assets back.

The FOREX vampires attacking the currency. What's new.

[Raskolnik]

29. A simplistic interpretation, at best.

Zimbabwe's problems are myriad, and many of them are either traced to or excaberated by its colonial past, but you can't disregard the fact that Mugabe took a nation that had every potential to lead Africa into the 21st century and turned it to shit.