Achim Blume (1996): Land Tenure in Rural Zimbabwe

1.2. The Communal Areas (CAs)

In 1980, the year of Independence, about 700,000 households lived in more than 150 Communal Areas. Today the figure is thought to be about 1 million households, making a population of approximately 7 million. The average farm size is about 23 hectares (ha.), but this does not differentiate between arable land farmed on an individual basis and communal pasture, since the two are not separately recorded.

According to studies by the Ministry of Agriculture, the average cultivated area is only 3 ha. and ranges from 1.5 to 4.5 ha. The main crops are maize, varieties of millet, peanuts and sunflowers, which are essentially farmed on a subsistence basis. Cotton is an important cash crop.

Agricultural services in the form of credits, new technology, equipment and extension services are still only provided by the State on a rudimentary basis and continue to be inadequate.

Prior to the 1982 Communal Land Act (CLA) the system of land tenure was governed by the Tribal Trust Act (TTA) of 1967. Following the failure of the NLHA implementation in the Sixties the Tribal Trust Act returned formal powers of land allocation to the traditional authorities (chiefs, kraal heads) who managed the land on the traditional basis of communal property. That gave formal recognition to the socially prevailing land tenure system in the CAs.

However, rights of disposition relating to the allocation and use of land were taken back from the chiefs and kraal heads by the CLA (1982), and transferred to local, democratically-elected government representatives. The land was therefore formally owned by the State, represented ultimately by the President. However, land was still intended to be and has indeed continued to be allocated according to the principles of customary law.

Under the new Act, 55 district councils were established in the Communal Lands - twice the number of the African Councils they replaced. Their de jure role extended from the designation of arable and pasture land to crop regulation and to determining what resource-protection measures were needed. The decentralised, participatory planning system laid down in the Prime Minister Directive of 1984 also did not allocate any special role to the traditional hierarchical authorities, although they were eligible to be elected to the district councils and community courts. As the latter were primarily concerned with land disputes and the traditional leaders regained control over the courts in the second half of the Eighties, their actual importance in relation to land matters rose substantially again. However, the interaction between modern and traditional authorities varies considerably from region to region, as does the relative importance of the two forms.

Even in the present day land is still allocated de facto in accordance with the traditional system which over time has proved to be very adaptable to changing conditions.

In pre-colonial times access to land was governed by the traditional agrarian principles of the individual ethnic groups. Among the Shona, the largest and most influential ethnic group in Zimbabwe, each member of the tribe was given unrestricted rights to an adequate share of the arable land on the basis of the autochthonous social consensus. The community, represented by the chief, had to determine the amount of land to be allocated, taking into account the subsistence needs of a household with a given number of members. These powers of determination also included the right to increase or to decrease the arable areas allotted, e.g. in line with the family’s demographic cycle. Pasture land was treated differently, and no exclusive individual use rights were granted. All of this common land was available to all the members of the tribe for animal grazing, without any major restrictions.

The advent of colonialisation which made farming land scarce, population growth, the fact that ethnic groups were living closer to each other, and changes in other frame conditions (agricultural markets, consumer preferences, etc.) have all put the traditional system of land tenure under pressure to adapt. A good example of the system’s adaptive dynamism in response to externally generated structural change is provided by the reform of the rules of inheritance within the traditional system. As the land no longer reverts to the traditional authorities’ common pool for reallocation under these new rules, this can be regarded as a further step in the direction of individualisation of land tenure.

The overall demand for exclusive property rights by influential groups in the CAs has increased considerably over the last few years. Experts believe that, for practical purposes, pasture is the only land managed on a communal basis today. De facto, then, the law is now such that most of the arable land in the CAs is held under a private property regime (Moyo 1994.9), because individual families have appropriated overall control over the land and its transfer. Control over the land, transfers of land and bidding for land now arise out of such situations as inheritance, informal land transfers ("sales") and agreements on infrastructure investment which involve the transfer or leasing of arable land. The State normally turns a blind eye to this budding "market activity". Increasingly the local authorities responsible for land allocation are said to be receiving material benefits from land allocation services. The disposals also increasingly involve the allocation of land to "non-villagers". These first features of an emerging land market in the CAs are attributable to the declining acceptance of the ideology of communal land and the increasing trend towards individualistically motivated, capitalist forms of behaviour. However, this change is not in any way purely endogenous, but is a reaction to the political, economic and demographic trends of the last few years. Methodological individualism is of course a basic principle of Western economic and political ideology, which is also becoming increasingly widespread among Zimbabwe’s black elite. The problems associated with individualisation and the development of a land market are, on the one hand, the lack of an adequate institutional framework and, on the other hand, the risk of potential adverse effects on the distribution of wealth and income.

The system of land tenure in the CAs today can be summed up as follows:

• Property rights in respect of the Communal Areas are vested in the State.
• Formal and informal powers of disposition are not identical. Formal and informal institutions (i.e. district councils and traditional bodies, respectively) coexist when it comes to land allocation. Which of the two predominates varies greatly from region to region, but both institutions are supposed to perform their land allocation roles according to customary law.
• The system of land tenure in practice is based largely on customary law and accordingly guarantees each individual a usufruct (right of use) in respect of land for housing, pasture and agriculture, and other common resources such as wood and water.
• The system guarantees individual usufructs for a residential plot and arable land during the rainy seasons.
• As long as individual farmers continue to work their arable land year after year, they will retain their exclusive usufructs. If they do so, their usufructs may also be inherited.
• Contrary to the autochthonous system of land tenure, dynamic legal reality is showing signs of an emerging informal land market and increasing individualisation in relation to arable land.
• Access to pasture and common resources is unlimited for any member of the community. No individual has the right to prevent others from using these resources. In addition, pasture and community boundaries are often only vaguely defined.

In addition to the trend towards individualisation and the development of a land market, three further trends affecting the CAs are currently evident, and these constitute the areas’ most vital problems. Though the trends are described separately here, in reality the individual problem areas are very interdependent, and to some extent they mutually reinforce each other.

• increasing pressure from population growth

As stated above, the population in the CAs grew from approx. 5m to 7m between 1980 and 1990. There is no sign of any change in this trend and, indeed, further growth is forecast. One indicator of the potential demographic trend, for example, is the percentage of the total population accounted for by young age cohorts. In Zimbabwe as a whole the percentage of under-15-year-olds is about 45%, and in the CAs it even exceeds 50%. According to official forecasts, therefore, the total population of Zimbabwe will increase from the current 10m to between 12m and 13.5m in the year 2000, and the largest share of this growth will take place in the CAs. Without political intervention the differential between the population density in the CAs (about 65-70 inhabitants per sq.km.) and that in the Commercial Areas (about 10/sq.km.) will rise, with adverse consequences for economic and social development. This trend will place particularly high demands on future forms of land use, in relation to which the system of land tenure and the management of the anticipated migration will play a key role.

• Increasing fragmentation of agricultural areas

Today the arable land has to be divided among approx. 1 million households compared with 700,000 at the time of Independence. Behind this trend lie the general pressure of population growth and the dynamism with which patterns of inheritance in relation to land-use rights have continued to evolve. The eldest son’s socially recognised right to his inheritance increasingly has to be defended against the inheritance claims of other relatives. Explicit bequests made by the current owner of land rights are also becoming more common. Apart from this, the uncontrolled development of an informal land market is contributing to the further fragmentation of agricultural land.

• Falling soil fertility and increased signs of degradation

Inappropriate farming methods in relation to changes in the overall operating environment and inadequate planning of land use lead to overuse, soil degradation and ultimately to falling productivity. The level of soil erosion, one of the manifestations of degradation, is quite alarming in some areas. Erosion values have already been recorded of up to 50 tonnes per hectare per annum for arable land and of 75t./ha. for pasture land. These are equivalent to surface losses of 4 and 6mm respectively per annum. With regard to the first problem area outlined above it is significant that there is a positive correlation between erosion and population density.