THE IMPACT OF THE 2000 LAND REFORM PROGRAMME ON THE CAPITAL BLOCK, POPULARLY KNOWN AS THE ‘NEW MALAWI’

Abstract

The 2000 land reform programme implemented by the government of Zimbabwe came with an initiative of acquiring enormous hectares of white-owned farmland and distributing it on a massive scale to small-scale farmers. Indeed the greater part of the land was taken from the white commercial farmers and distributed to the majority black Zimbabweans, leaving only a small share of the farmland in the hands of the whites. The land reform programme, undoubtedly, benefited Zimbabweans. In Zimbabwe, especially in mining areas, there are classes of Zimbabweans, those who originate from Zimbabwe, as well as those who are of foreign origin, but are Zimbabweans by birth. Zimbabweans by birth who are of foreign origin occupied an allocated A2 farm, Capital Block, located near a cement mining area, Colleen Bawn. Most of them were of Malawian origin, and the area is now popularly known as ‘New Malawi’. This study sought to investigate how Zimbabweans of foreign origin benefited from the 2000 land reform programme. The article further sought to reveal the diverse farming systems as well as Indigenous Knowledge (IK), which were passed on from the forefathers who were born in Malawi, but migrated to Zimbabwe’s mining areas in search for employment in the then Rhodesia around 1960. A qualitative methodology was used in this research, in which oral history interviews were conducted with the people living in the area of the ‘New Malawi’. The study revealed that most of the land was being used for farming purposes. Beneficiaries of the programme had become self-dependent. The study further revealed that there was knowledge sharing among the beneficiaries of different foreign origins including Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana and those of Zimbabwean origin. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that the programme benefited a number of people of foreign origins who were now Zimbabweans by birth and Zimbabweans by both birth and origin were happy with these people benefiting, a situation which shows the extent to which Zimbabweans are tolerant of foreigners.