Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy

http://ags.sagepub.com/ The Political Economy of Agrarian Labour Relations in Zimbabwe after Redistributive Land Reform
Walter Chambati Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 2013 2: 189 DOI: 10.1177/2277976013493570 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ags.sagepub.com/content/2/2/189

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Article Editors Introduction

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Agrarian South: Journal of The Political Economy Political Economy 2(2) 189211 of Agrarian Labour 2013 Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South (CARES) Relations in SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, Zimbabwe after New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC Redistributive DOI: 10.1177/2277976013493570 http://ags.sagepub.com Land Reform

Walter Chambati
Abstract This article examines the reconfiguration of agrarian labour relations in Zimbabwe following extensive land redistribution since 2000. Based on field research, it shows that the new forms of labour utilization that have emerged are structured around new land ownership and material conditions, within a more diversified agrarian economy. The new agrarian structure is characterized by reduced supplies of wage labour, as more of the previously land-short peasants are now self-employed on the land they gained, while part-time wage-labour provision has grown in the differentiated capitalist farms, which have been largely unable to enforce labour tenancy relations. Agrarian politics are increasingly focused on class struggles between capital and labour, in general, and the competition for resources between the different modes of farming. Keywords agrarian labour, redistributive land reform, agrarian structure, farm labour tenancy, production relations
Walter Chambati a researcher at the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS), Harare, Zimbabwe and PhD candidate at the School of Public and Development Management, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Email: wsschambati@hotmail.com.
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Introduction
This article explores the transformation of Zimbabwes agrarian labour relations by the extensive land redistribution that has occurred under the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) since 2000. New forms of labour utilization have emerged, structured around new land ownership and material conditions, within a more diversified agrarian structure. The latter is characterized by reduced supplies of wage labour, as more of the previously land-short people are now self-employed on the land they gained, while part-time wage-labour provision has grown in the differentiated capitalist farms, which have been largely unable to enforce labour tenancy relations. Until 1999, agrarian labour relations in Zimbabwe were structured by the labour reserve system that emerged from settler-colonial land dispossession, entailing the supply of wage labour by landless and land-short peasants in the Communal Areas to large-scale commercial farms (LSCFs). This labour reserve system had once been interpreted as a case of proletarianisation of the African peasantry: land dispossession was considered to have irreversibly undermined the social reproduction of the peasantry and fuelled a linear process of proletarianization towards the capitalist sector (Arrighi 1970). It has been argued, however, that while land dispossession dented the autonomous social reproduction of the peasantry, this process was uneven and incomplete, leading to a perpertual semi-proletarianisation, whereby petty-commodity production by peasants on small plots continued to exist and combined with wage labour on the farms and beyond (Moyo and Yeros 2005). In this context, agrarian labour relations were super-exploitative, entailing extremely low wages and repressive practices, such as the labour residential tenancy system which tied residency to farm employment. Today, the qualitative changes in Zimbabwes agrarian relations have been analyzed in terms of a tri-modal agrarian structure, comprising an expanded peasantry, the tripling of small and medium-to-large capitalist farms and the reduction of agro-industrial estates (Moyo 2011, 2013). These competing modes of organization of production are based on differentiated forms of land control and wage-labour relations, as well as differing degrees of integration into markets (ibid.). Overall, the structure and orientation of agricultural production has shifted towards the increased production of food, with the partial recovery of export Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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production (ibid.). The tri-modal structure is further driven by differen tiated access to farming inputs and commodity markets, as well as contract farming as a means of financing agriculture (ibid.). This has been accompanied by competing modes of accumulation, from below and above, and on-going social differentiation. Agrarian politics are increasingly focused on class struggles between capital and labour, in general, and the competition for resources between the different modes of farming. The partial dismantling of the labour tenancy system by the new land ownership and tenure patterns (Chambati 2011, 2013) has substantially reduced the dependency on a few LSCFs for wage employment and increased the bargaining power of farm labour against super-exploitation. It has also generated favourable conditions for farmworkers to organize and defend their residential rights in the farm compounds. A series of studies undertaken by the African Institute of Agrarian Studies (AIAS) in Harare have explored the new labour relations at an aggregate level, capturing broad patterns in the supply of family farm labour and wage labour to an increased number of differentiated capitalist farms, as well as the improvement in the residential rights of workers on capitalist farms (Chambati 2011, 2013; Chambati and Moyo 2004; Moyo et al. 2009). This structural transformation has been missed by numerous studies which have been narrowly focused on production outcomes (Masiiwa and Chipungu 2004; Richardson 2005) and formal employment development (Magaramombe 2010; Sachikonye 2003). This present article extends the AIAS macro analyses above by conducting a micro-level study of a peri-urban area in Goromonzi District, Mashonaland East Province.1 The study provides further insight into the qualitative shifts in the labour regime following land redistribution, based on better understanding of the specificities of the district.

Changing Agrarian Structure and Production Relations

In Goromonzi, the FTLRP introduced two of the three competing modes of organization of production, namely the peasantry and small-to-large capitalist farms. The agro-industrial estates which constitute the third Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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farm category are relatively minor in the district. The FTLRP extended land access to over 1,673 peasant households and 849 small to large capitalist farms, which now occupy 200 former LSCFs (about 44 percent of the best land) with higher agro-ecological potential (Table 1). Previously, the ownership of about 257 LSCFs was dominated by white farmers, although the racial mix, consisting of 33 percent black ownership, was higher than elsewhere (MLRR 2012). These new patterns of land ownership were influenced by the close proximity of Goromonzi to Harare and well-developed public infrastructures that fuelled intense competition for land by urban middle classes. The land beneficiaries are more ethnically diverse than other districts, as about 19 percent had their Communal Areas homes or kumusha in Goromonzi, compared to over 30 percent in other districts (AIAS 2007). Thus, the ethno-regionalism which influenced land allocations in other districts (Moyo 2011) was largely absent in Goromonzi. The A1 resettlement scheme increased the land owned by the peasantry and the number of farm households in the district, adding to the already existing Communal Areas. However, the share of land held by A1 and Communal Area farmers in the district, at 45 per cent, is less than the national average of 79 per cent (Table 1, Moyo 2011: 512). The landholders in the A1 sector include those who originated in the Communal Areas (61.3 per cent), urbanites (29.2 per cent) and former LSCF workers (6.3 per cent) (AIAS 2007). The category of capitalist farmers, namely those who hire most of their labour and produce for the market (Moyo 2013) and comprising of small and large capitalist farms, has grown substantially in terms of land ownership and number of farm households. The small capitalist farmers that own land in the old small-scale commercial farms (SSCFs) and the small and medium A2 farms control 19 per cent of the land (Table 1). The large capitalist farm sector, including the remaining black and white LSCFs plus large A2 farms, now occupies a relatively large proportion of land (29 per cent) (Table 1), compared to other districts at an average of 3.5 per cent (Moyo 2011: 512). Urban connections are most prevalent in capitalist farms, with 39 per cent of beneficiaries originating in urban areas, but the majority (52 per cent) coming from Communal Areas (AIAS 2007). This sector has expanded the pre-2000 employer base for farmworkers.

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Table 1: Emerging Agrarian Structure in Goromonzi District: Estimated Landholdings (2012) Area held (ha) 2000* % 78,066.39 32,437.63 31.0 110,504.03 0.8 0.8 61.8 61.8 27,206.49 43,948.05 71,154.54 2,068.45 43,645.80 45,714.25 0.84 17.72 18.56 11.05 17.84 28.89 1.46 3.10 3.10 7.67 100.00 31.0 31.70 13.17 44.87 3.91 3.90 86.19 86.20 ha % 3.72 19.39 11.56 86.19 56.10 71.30 2012* Average Farm size (ha) 2000 2012

Farms/households 2000 2012 No % No %

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Farm categories ha Peasantry Communal 19,976 98.6 20,975 88.8 78,066.39 A1 1,673 7.1 Sub-total 19,976 98.6 22,648 95.9 78,066.39 Medium Old SSCF 24 0.1 24 0.1 2,068.45 Small A2 778 3.3 Sub-total 24 0.1 802 3.4 2,068.45 Large scale Large A2 240 1.2 71 0.3 LSCF 89 0.4 155,437.00 Sub-total 240 1.2 160 0.7 155,437.00 Agro-estates Corporate 4 0.02 4 0.02 3,605.08 Parastatal 6 0.03 9 0.04 5,604.70 Institutions 3 0.01 3 0.01 7,637.79 Sub-total 8 0.04 8 0.03 12,042.59 Total 20,253 100 23,626 100 251,619.71 647.65 647.70 901.27 800.65 2,545.93 1,415.95 12.42 1.4 3,605.08 2.2 7,668.70 3.0 7,637.79 4.8 18,911.57 100.0 246,285.32

383.19 493.80 493.80 901.27 829.15 2,545.93 1,425.45 10.42

Source: Compiled by author from MLRR data sheets (2012); framework adopted from Moyo and Yeros (2005); hectarages do not tally due to rounding off, the absorption of some agricultural land into urban residential land and some missing data on farm sizes.

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Agro-estates in Goromonzi, which include private agribusiness companies, state farms and church and trust institutions control about 8 per cent of the land area and have the largest average land size, at 1,425 hectares (Table 1). These agro-estates are vertically integrated into global market chains, they are highly capitalized and also have an agroindustrial element. Land tenure and the forms of land control are differentiated amongst the three modes of organization of production. In the Communal and A1 resettlement areas, customary and state permit tenure, respectively, assign to the peasantry the right to use the land in perpetuity. Land ownership in the A1 scheme is not governed by custom, but village heads appointed by the chiefs in Goromonzi mediate some agrarian relations. In the capitalist sector, the A2 farms and the LSCFs, land rights are derived from 99-year state leases and freehold property, respectively. Yet, land control is also derived from informal land leasing between landholders and former LSCFs, farmworkers and agribusiness firms, a practice confirmed by 27 per cent of beneficiaries in the district (Moyo et al. 2009: 35). The differentiation in farm structure is also reflected in the production relations, choice of commodities and integration in commodity markets. Peasant production, which is organized around family labour, is characterized by food production (maize and small grains) for own consumption and surplus sales in domestic markets. The small and large capitalist farms produce a mix of food and export commodities, including maize, soyabeans, horticulture and commercially oriented livestock (AGRITEX District annual reports 2011). Capital intensive crops, such as wheat, seed maize and barley, are the preserve of large capitalist farms (ibid.). Tobacco is grown by all producer classes, but the larger share of the land area under the crop is found in capitalist farms through their more pronounced links to contract farming (ibid.). Since the FTLRP in Goromonzi redistributed more than 70 per cent of the land acquired to capitalist farms and retained a relatively large base of LSCFs, the district has a relatively large number of land short people, as their average landholding is only a fifth of that found nationally (Table 1, Moyo 2011: 512). Land shortages are thus more acute in the Communal Areas of Goromonzi, which continue to provide full- and part-time farm labour. About 10,000 land short labourers and their families are also resident in 257 farm compounds (Interview District Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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Extension Officer, 6 June 2012). This suggests that the labour reserve dynamics of the past that were driven by land shortages and which compelled the peasants to enter the labour market still operate in Goromonzi, more so than in other areas where peasants got the larger share of the land redistributed.

Agrarian Labour Relations in Capitalist Farms

The forms of labour mobilization, utilization and remuneration of workers are differentiated amongst the new range of capitalist farms, largely due to the scale of their production, sources of finance and management practices. There are an estimated 10,500 full-time and 16,000 part-time workers on 962 capitalist farms in the district.2 Approximat- ely 65 per cent of the workers are resident in the farm compounds, while much of the part-time labour is recruited from Communal Areas, A1 farms and the compounds.

Farm Scale and Labour Utilization

The large capitalist farms have the highest number of wage labourers, at 30 full-time and 45 part-time workers per farm. These are associated with high arable land utilization rates, high levels of capital investment, such as irrigation facilities, and large cropped areas. For instance, at the top end of the large-scale farms, Glen Avon Farm, with 360 hectares, cultivated over 50 hectares of tobacco under irrigation (since 2004) and employed 90 permanent workers and an average of 80 seasonal workers annually. In contrast, the small capitalist farms with high land utilization rates are associated with the employment of small batches of permanent workers, averaging less than 15 workers per farm. This is exemplified by the case of MN, who holds 59.5 hectares (of which 30 hectares are arable) on Banana Groove Farm and employs 10 permanent workers. This farm cultivates 20 hectares of tobacco, 10 hectares of maize and 0.2 hectares of greenhouse horticultural crops and this is combined with a 26 sow piggery project. Professional farm managers were recruited in large capitalist farms, such as Glen Avon, to oversee the operations, while small capitalist Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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farms were personally managed by the owners, as was the case at MNs farm. In Goromonzi, less than 15 per cent of the small capitalist farms hired farm managers (AIAS 2007). The large capitalist farms had wider sources of finance for farming. The financing of operations at Glen Avon farm derives from contract farming with a large tobacco merchant, who has been providing secured credit averaging US$500,000 annually since 2009, as well as personal savings and retained farm profits. Small capitalist farms such as MN financed their farm production from middle class urban wages, farm profits and past savings.

Forms of Labour Utilization and its Sources

The large capitalist farms hired seasonal labourers on fixed-term contracts, ranging between one and eight months during the rainy season, while small capitalist farms hired part-time labour in the form of pieceworkers for a daily wage. Piecework is either task-based, whereby the wage rate is tied to completing a certain task, such as weeding a parti cular land area (around 0.06 hectares); or time-rated, which entails working for a specific amount of time (normally an eight-and-half-hour day). Specialist part-time labour groups which were formed by former farmworkers to provide services, such as tobacco curing and grading, were also used in small capitalist farms. They perform tasks over a short time period and receive their payment as a group. Such groups were engaged by 16 per cent of the small capitalist farms in Goromonzi (AIAS 2007). The formation of these groups is another way in which farmworkers organize to resist low formal wages and bargain for more by using their skills (Chambati 2011, 2013). The farm compounds which guaranteed labour supplies for the former LSCFs were restructured by land redistribution, tenure reforms and state policy, which allow farmworkers to retain residency irrespective of their employment. This affected the mobilization of labour for the capitalist farms. Land redistribution meant that large capitalist farms inherited the entire farm compounds as individual landholders, while small capitalist farms share it as a group. Yet, the labour residential tenancy of the past is perpetuated in the farm compounds located on the remaining LSCFs and agro-estates. Labour in the large-scale capitalist farms is mobilized from farm workers Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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resident in the compounds (those left by white LSCFs) through the application of the labour residential tenancy system. At Glen Avon Farm, for instance, all the workers resident in the compound were obligated to provide wage labour, as the owner argued that the costs incurred in the maintenance of the compound and in social service provision3 were to benefit only the resident workforce (Interview Glen Avon, 31 July 2012). In fact, one worker who refused to comply with this was evicted in 2007, with the assistance of the local police. The large farms are thus able to deploy their political connections and sole control of the farm compound to evict defiant farm labourers. By contrast, the farm compounds of the former LSCFs that are now occupied by small capitalists serve multiple employers. The compounds are inherited by the land beneficiaries in whose plots they lie, but state policy enjoins the small capitalist farms to share the farm compound with others in the same former LSCF. This presents farmworkers with a relative degree of freedom to choose where to sell their labour power. Farmworkers in the compounds of small capitalist farms are also being compelled to work in return for residency, but they resist such labour provision. On Banana Groove Farm, less than 10 per cent of the former farmworkers were employed on a permanent basis by the 20 small capitalist farms, whilst the remainder were employed in piecework in multiple sites within and outside the farm. This has resulted in the implementation of employment audits in the compounds concerned, to examine where the different farmworkers are employed, with a view to resolve labour shortages. Such audits occur in meetings which compile lists of compound residents not employed on the farm. After such a meeting on Banana Groove farm in October 2011, 12 farm labourers were targeted for eviction, but they refused to leave with the support of their colleagues (Interviews, 2 August 2012). The farmworkers sought assistance of a non-governmental organization, Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZIMRIGHTS), which successfully obtained a peace order against the farmers at the Goromonzi Magistrate Court, which stopped the planned evictions. The new situation has also resulted in new practices, whereby small capitalist farmers, unable to enforce the labour residential tenancy, are constructing new farm compounds on their own plots to accommodate the workers independently. For instance, MN built a compound comprised of five two-room houses for 10 permanent workers in 2010, after Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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experiencing labour shortages (Interview MN, Banana Groove Farm, 31 July 2012). According to MN, the compound ensured consistent and reliable labour supplies, as residency depended on working on the farm. The construction of new compounds was observed in only two small capitalist farms out of the 30 surveyed in 2012. Another practice observed on many small capitalist farms is the provision of residency to new workers at the homestead of the employer. 89 per cent (or 49) of new farm workers surveyed in Goromonzi were living at the homesteads of their employers (AIAS 2007). This type of labour tenancy, however, differs from the social segregation established on the previous white LSCFs. In these new arrangements, workers share several amenities with their employers, including water, sanitation and energy. The inherited labour force in the large capitalist farms is supplemented by part-time labourers from A1 farms and Communal Areas. Workers with no prior LSCF work history, including landless extended family members, are found to be permanently employed in small capitalist farms. Out of 87 small capitalist farms surveyed in Goromonzi, only 20 were hiring former farmworkers in their permanent workforce (AIAS 2007). Kinship ties are also used by farmworkers in the compounds to organize themselves to sell their labour services in group piecework such as weeding.

Agrarian Wages and Benefits

Agricultural wages after the FTLRP have remained repressed and the lowest among other formal employment categories. The statutory minimum monthly wages for permanent and seasonal farmworkers, which are determined through collective bargaining, have doubled from US$30 in 2009 to US$59 in 2012 (LEDRIZ 2012). Few large capitalist farms, such as Glen Avon, utilized collective bargaining agreements, which place workers into different skills grades in the determination of farm wages, while small capitalist farms used employers discretion and negotiations at the farm level. The monthly wages paid to permanent workers in the small capitalist farms in 2012 ranged from US$40 to US$100. The small capitalist farms linked to export crops such as tobacco and horticulture and which had access to more capital, paid higher wages, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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averaging US$80 (for example, MN of Banana Groove Farm), compared to those with limited resources who focused on food production, paying US$40 on average (for example, CK, Melfort of Secuta Farm). The farm wages for permanent workers in the small capitalist farms also reflected hierarchy at the workplace. For instance, on MNs plot at Banana Groove Farm, the general hands from the piggery section earned US$75 per month, compared to those in the field crop section, who earned US$60, while the supervisors of the two sections earned US$100 and US$70, respectively. Collective bargaining excludes the wages of pieceworkers, which are negotiated by the employer and employee. Since 2010, they ranged from US$3 to US$5 per day in Goromonzi. The daily wage rates are differentiated on the basis of the kind of tasks performed and the crops involved. Arduous tasks, such as weeding, commanded a higher wage rate of US$5 per day, in comparison to US$3 for less demanding tasks, such as planting maize and soybeans, while most tasks in tobacco production received US$5 per day. Competition for labour during peak periods leads to wage bidding amongst capitalist farmers that raise wages for tasks pegged at US$3 to US$5 (Interviews, Lot 3 Buena Vista, 2 August 2012). The non-payment of wages was a recurrent complaint in interviews with farmworkers, while the agricultural workers trade union, GAPWUZ, also claims that non-payment of wages is its biggest challenge in the dollarized economy (The Worker, 1 February 2012). Wage conflicts are also pervasive across numerous economic sectors in the country.4 The situation is, however, differentiated across farms, as farmworkers employed on capitalist farms with a steady cash flowthrough, for example, contract farmingreceive wages on time. The farmers attribute the non-payment of wages after 2009 to the dollarization of the economy, the loss of Zimbabwe Dollar savings, credit shortages (The Sunday Mail, 29 May 2011) and low commodity prices (Interviews, 31 July 2012). Farmworkers have resisted low wages or infrequent payments by quitting permanent employment and transitioning to piecework, as well as absconding from work to gain extra income in piecework. According to KN, who quit his permanent job as a tractor driver on an A2 farm, after not receiving wages for three months in 2010, piecework frequently earns money for food, while the waiting period for wages is shorter (Interviews, KN Buena Vista, 8 August 2012). Some large capitalist farms, such as Glen Avon, have introduced monthly attendance Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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allowances of US$10 to reduce worker absenteeism (Interview, Glen Avon Farm, 2 August 2012). The capitalist farmers are increasingly using labour saving techno logies, such as herbicides, to reduce labour requirements and wage outlays. Herbicide use reduces the cost of weeding a hectare of maize from US$120 to US$11 and the labour requirement from 25 to 3 workers (Interviews, District Agricultural Extension Officer, 8 July 2012). The seasonal labour force at Glen Avon Farm was thus reduced from 110 to 80, between 2009 and 2010. Various other strategies are being devised by employers to attract labour. Offering meals to pieceworkers, beyond their daily wages, was also observed in small capitalist farms in Goromonzi. Those farmers unable to provide food were being forced to search for cheaper farm labour in Communal Areas (Interview with JM, Lot 3 Buena Vista Farm, 6 June 2012). Permanent workers also received a food ration, which was normally 20 kilogrammes of maize grain per month, in most capitalist farms (Interview with MN, 31 July 2012). Free residence in the compounds is also part of the farm wage structure that is being received by labourers in both capitalist and family farms, as well as in the homesteads of employers. The farmers that do not provide residence to permanent and seasonal employees are by law supposed to offer an allowance of US$35 per month (GoZ 2012).

Agrarian Labour Relations in Family Farms

Agrarian labour relations in family farms are substantially different from those in capitalist farms, insofar as over 90 per cent of their labour is derived from the immediate and extended family (Langyuito 2005). The farm labour in the 1,673 A1 farms in Goromonzi is mainly provided by about 6,000 self-employed family labourers, although some also hire in labour to augment family supplies. Some family farms (5 per cent) also divide their labour between own production and wage labour in the capitalist farms to mobilize financial resources for food production (AIAS 2007). Semi-proletarianization of labour thus persists, although with more autonomy deriving from increased land access. By 2006, the majority of peasant households (80.2 per cent) in Goromonzi had established themselves on their family plots in the Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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redistributed LSCFs and had constructed houses and other related social amenities (AIAS 2007), enabling them to engage in autonomous selfemployed farming. Family farm labour is drawn from the nuclear family, including young children who are allocated tasks such as planting and herding livestock, while sometimes landless extended family members are co-opted to increase the labour supplies of the nuclear family on a permanent and temporary basis (Moyo et al. 2009). Such recruitment, which is considered by some as helping struggling relatives, is exemplified by JT, a family farmer on Xanadu B Farm, who recruited his nephew from nearby Epworth High Density suburb whose income from informal employment was failing to meet the costs of social reproduction. The nephew was offered a place to stay on the farm in 2010, alongside contributing labour with his wife to the family farm (Interview with JT, Xanadu Farm, 3 August 2012). Thus, kinship networks are also central in the mobilization of labour in family farms. Reciprocal labour exchanges are also a key feature of the organization of production in Goromonzi. Groups of family farms team up to work on one of the participants plot, in activities such as weeding and this is reciprocated among all the group members. These labour exchanges were mostly organized around groups of family farmers who knew each other prior to the FTLRP and originated themselves from the same villages in the Communal Areas of Goromonzi. Some family farms also divide their labour between their A1 plots and Communal Areas plots that they still maintain. Up to 6 per cent of the A1 farmers in Goromonzi did this (Moyo et al. 2009: 30). The family farms can be differentiated according to those who also hire in labour to supplement the family during peak agricultural periods; about 83 per cent of the family farms in Goromonzi hired in labour (AIAS 2007). The most common form of hired labour amongst the family farms is piecework in weeding and harvesting. Only 33 per cent of the family farms hired permanent labour (ibid.). Part-time labour is mobilized from the farm compounds in family farms that were not allocated to any particular land beneficiary and are considered state property. Farmworkers in these compounds are also forced into mandatory labour provision, while those who refuse are evicted. Employment audits again are implemented by family farmers to identify defiant farm labourers. At Dunstan A1 farm compound, less than Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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16 per cent of the farm workers were employed on the farm as permanent workers, whilst the remainder were pieceworkers on the farm and elsewhere in the 201112 season (Interview, 6 June 2012). Five farm workers (or 8 percent of the households) were evicted from Dunstan Farm, after an employment audit by 30 A1 farmers, led by the sabhuku (village head). The residential rights of the farmworkers were later restored with the assistance of ZIMRIGHTS in the courts of law.

Land Rentals and Labour Exchange Relations

In the interstices between family and capitalist farming, there are new intermediate forms of agrarian labour relations involving families which rent and/or exchange land for labour and incomes in cash or kind, due to differentiated access to land, labour and farming resources. This involves less than 5 per cent of landless farm workers who largely provide hired labour services from the compounds and other areas (communal and peri-urban areas), on both capitalist and family farms. This relation involves an element of landlordism, as suggested by Moyo (2011). Some farmworkers were provided with small plots of land in capitalist farms for independent production to complement wages, as was the case in some former LSCFs (Vhurumuku et al. 1998). The large-scale Glen Avon farmer allocated to his 170 farmworkers about 13 hectares to share amongst themselves and to grow maize, ostensibly to make them feel like they have a stake on the farm and build their loyalty (Interviews, 31 July 2012). There is differentiation in the plot sizes received by farmworkers, as senior workers were allocated double the land size than that received by the general workforce. These plots of land are worked by the farmworkers and their families outside the employment hours. Small plots ranging between 0.04 and 0.5 hectares were being accessed by part-time workers in the compounds. The former senior male workers commanded larger land sizes, as they lived in the spacious sections of the farm compound, while the lowly skilled workers (mostly females) who resided in the dormitories at Dunstan and Xanadu B farms had the smallest plots and others had none (Interviews, 22 July 2012). Approximately 36 per cent of the former farmworkers surveyed in 2006 farmed small plots in the farm compound, while also selling their labour

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(AIAS 2007). The workers on these farms also encroached onto grazing lands communally owned by family farmers to harvest thatching grass and firewood for sale and own consumption, as well as sand for brick making (Interviews, CM, Dunstan farm, 17 July 2012). The freedom to choose what to produce in the small compound plots varies. In the capitalist farms, maize and vegetable production was dominant, as before 2000 (Vhurumuku et al. 1998), while in the family farms, cash crops such as tobacco are also cultivated. Eight per cent of the farm workers on Dunstan Farm grew tobacco in the 201112 season. The extension of crops grown is attributed to the freedom obtained in the compounds after the FTLRP as one farmworker said that:
we are now free. The white farmers are gone and we can do all these things that he didnt allow us to do. The country is now ours; there is no need to be afraid of each other. The settlers are our fellow black colleagues (Interview, CM Dunstan Farm, 16 July 2012).

The farm workers have been resisting efforts by farmers to stop them from producing tobacco, as they are no longer selling their labour (Interview, WP Dunstan Farm 6 June 2012) and continue to grow tobacco on the strength of the peace order against their evictions obtained from the courts (discussed earlier). In the family farms, the first type of exchange entails former farmworkers being offered small plots of land in return for labour supplies. These kinds of exchanges were observed amongst a few farmworkers in the compounds. At Dunstan farm, only one out of the estimated 60 farmworkers provided labour to a family farm in return for one hectare of land in the 201112 season, while this involved 5 per cent of the workers at Xanadu B Farm. Family labour time of the farm workers is divided between the exchange plots and the A1 farms that extend the land to them. Landless farmworkers were reluctant to enter into these exchanges, as family farms had a tendency of offering them land requiring clearing every season (Interview, PG Dunstan Farm, 31 July 2012). The second type of exchange involves the recruitment of extended family members to work on family farms, not for a wage but for a share of the output and food and housing, during the duration. The family farms provide the agricultural inputs and their own labour, which is then supplemented by the labour of relatives. This was observed in MCs

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family farm, which cultivated tobacco and maize on four and two hectares, respectively. Two nephews that were recruited from the Communal Area to augment nuclear family labour (comprising of the husband, wife and two adult sons) were given 450 kilogrammes of tobacco for their labour efforts in 201112 season, from the total of 3,000 kilogrammes harvested (Interview, MC, Lot 3 Buena Vista, 2 August 2012). The third type of exchange involves resource constrained family farmers who are not able to utilize all their land and thus lease part of their land to other landless households in return for a share of the crop on a seasonal basis. The agricultural inputs and labour to farm the land provided by the family farmers is supplied by the landless households. The output from these lands is shared according to ratios agreed by both parties, or through the discretion of the landless households. Farm workers use family labour to work on this land accessed from family farmers, while other landless households, such as rural civil servants (for example, teachers), recruit pieceworkers to complement family supplies. The discretionary crop shares obtained by family farmers from leasing part of their land were normally low. For instance, a family farmer who leased one hectare of land during the 201112 season was offered four per cent of the 3,500 kilogrammes of maize harvested by the landless household (Interview, Dunstan Farm, 8 June 2012). These low shares were accepted by the family farmers, as they obtained something from the land, which they would otherwise not reap if the land lay idle and kept their land productive and prevented threats of land dispossession by the state (ibid.). The family farmers, however, bargained for more when the shares were negotiated with landless households. This is illustrated by a case in which a family farmer received 60 per cent of the tobacco output from the one hectare plot leased to a farm worker household during the 200506 and 200607 seasons (Interview, WP, Dunstan Farm, 8 June 2012).

Labour Organization on Farm Compounds

Land redistribution substantially dismantled the territorial monopoly held by the former LSCFs and their spatial segregation, which previously allowed political and economic domination over adjacent areas (Moyo 2011). Within the reconfigured local power relations, farm Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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workers now deploy their own social networks around new land ownership patterns and kinship relations, to organize their homes and community and to resist super-exploitation and varied forms of deprivation, including of their residential rights. Furthermore, various external agents, such as political parties and NGOs, attempt to mobilize farm workers in the social struggle to improve their material conditions towards the political agendas of the former. This new context has undermined the excessive political and social control that was exercised by white farmers, in both work and off-work relations, through local unaccountable governance systems. Inaccurately called domestic government (Rutherford 2001), they were repressive and largely built on the dependency of workers on a single employer for both employment and residency. Such dependency relations were diluted by the FTLRP, placing farmworkers in a better position to organize their struggles against the new capitalist farms. This politics is structured mainly around the farm compounds, which have become active sites of organizing by former and new farm workers to advance their social, cultural and economic interests. The organization is influenced by the hierarchal order generated in the work relations, which differentiates them on the basis of labour skills, as well as gender, leadership positions in local organizations and access to and control over land. The senior workers that previously mediated work and off-work relations between white employers and black employees (Amanor-Wilks 1995) have remained influential in the organization of labour after 2000. They continue to occupy the so-called compound leader position that was responsible for resolving conflicts in the farm compound. These existing leadership structures are recognized widely and are mandated to inform the sabhuku, as was the case with the conflicts at Dunstan farm. In small capitalist farms, where there is no traditional authority, the compound leaders are very influential and also undertake some functions of the sabhuku, such as granting permission for burial rights in the farm cemetery (Interview, AK, Banana Groove, 31 July 2012). The application of labour residential tenancy by farmers implies that the farm compound is a contested space in which workers mobilize themselves to defend their land and residential rights. The farm labour community relies on state institutions such as courts to restore residency in the compound, as was done by the farmworkers at Dunstan and Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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Banana Groove Farm and also resorts to physical confrontation with the farmers to resist evictions. Farm workers in different compounds sometimes share information to support the resistance to evictions. For instance, the farmworkers evicted from Dunstan Farm were alerted of the legal services of ZIMRIGHTS by colleagues at neighbouring Banana Groove Farm. The formal and informal worker committees that are geared towards responding to labour grievances have their roots in the farm compound. For instance, at Banana Groove Farm, the former senior farm workers organized the workers to boycott employers with a known history of non-payment of wages (Interviews, AK, Banana Groove, 13 July 2012). The workers refuse to board the trucks of these employers when they come to recruit labour. Such employers are forced to go and seek labour from places far away from their farms. Farm workers canvass for support for election into formal workers committees in the compounds. The formal work committees were responsible for organizing work strikes experienced in October 2009, over unpaid backdated salary increments in the large farms. At Glen Avon farm, the workers committee, with the assistance of GAPWUZ, organized work stoppages during the beginning of tobacco planting season to force their employer to pay the salary increments which had been agreed. The presence of unions in the new farms is, however, weak and capitalist farmers tend to dominate the collective bargaining process (Chambati 2011, 2013). Agrarian labour politics is also influenced by the integration of farm workers into the wider community through various social and economic processes in the former LSCFs. As such, the stark difference between farmers and workers defined by race, wealth and culture that existed in the past (Loewenson 1992) is dissipating in the new farms, because of the increased social integration across class in the absence of racial segregation. Familial relations are evolving through inter-marriages between the communities of farmworkers and land beneficiaries, as some workers now have sons- and daughters-in-law among land beneficiaries. These relations consolidate the social structures of farm workers, as well as providing a source of land and augmenting the family labour supplies of the land beneficiaries (Interviews, Xanadu B farm, 4 August 2012). Over time friendships have also developed between family farmers and farmworkers through socializing in the same places, including belonging to the same church and school development committee, or Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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drinking beer in the informal bars dotted around the farm compounds. At Dunstan and Xanadu B farms, both farmworkers and family farmers patronised the informal bars run by farmworkers and had joint social soccer teams. The children of farmworkers and family farmers at Dunstan farm attended the same new government primary school established in the former farm house. This is partly attributed to the emerging cordial relations as observed by one farmworker who said that: we are getting used to each other [farmworkers and land beneficiaries] over time and conflicts between us are declining (Interview, Xanadu Farm, 4 August 2012). The friendship networks are used to mobilize farm labour by the farmers, as well as negotiating land access by farm workers (Interview, Xanadu Farm, 4 August 2012). Political party mobilization is also a platform of integration for the land beneficiary and farmworker communities. The Zimbabwe African National UnionPatriotic Front (ZANU-PF) is most active in mobilization of the political constituency in the new farms of Goromonzi. The old and new farm compounds have been added to the party structures of ZANU-PF, alongside the villages of land beneficiaries. Participation in political party structures by farmworkers also served to further their material interests. Two farmworker youths on Dunstan Farm, active in ZANU-PF structures, were being earmarked for the one hectare land allocations that were being planned by the village committee (Interview, Extension Officer, 17 August 2012). Other farmworkers also reported receiving subsidized farming inputs distributed through ZANU-PF party structures (Interview, 6 July, Dunstan Farm). Quite crucially, some farmworkers also noted their participation created hopes against their eviction from the compounds through protection from local party leadership who are influential in the social structures of family farmers. The other major political party, the Movement for Democratic ChangeTsvangirai (MDC-T), which actively mobilized white LSCFs and farmworkers in the early 2000s, during the referendum and land occupations (Sadomba 2008), in defence of the jobs of farm workers, is not as visible as ZANU-PF. However, the returns from the 2008 elections reflect the presence of the MDC-T, as it won 21 per cent of council seats in the former LSCFs, while ZANU-PF won the rest of the wards (ZESN 2008). Finally, there is also the question of social integration pertaining to the farmworkers of former migrant origin. In resettled communities with Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, social integration occurs over time (Barr 2004). Farm workers of foreign migrant origin, with different social and cultural practices, could therefore be expected to take longer to be integrated into the new communities. Farm workers seek to preserve their identity and belonging through various forms of social and cultural mobilization. For instance, migrant workers express cultural practices of their countries of origin, such as the nyao dances of the Nyanja and Chewa people of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. The farmworkers at Dunstan Farm had their nyao society which practiced religious rituals every Sunday within the confines of the farm compound prior to 2000. About 15 of the 60 farm worker households at Dunstan Farm are part of the nyao society. The sense of identity and belonging of migrant workers at Dunstan Farm is being threatened by the restriction of this cultural practice by the sabhuku. The farmworkers were restricted from practicing the nyao dance in 2003, as it was considered to conflict with the spirit mediums which are part of the cosmology in rural Zimbabwe (Interview, Village Head, Dunstan Farm, 16 July 2012). Apparently, farmworkers have been negotiating for accommodation of this cultural practice with the local traditional authorities over a period of time and have sometimes gotten permission to practice during national holidays between 2003 and 2011. The nyao dance is being slowly integrated into the cultural practices of the land reform communities. At Dunstan farm, about five individuals from amongst the family farmers also joined the nyao society dominated by farm workers. The rituals of the nyao dances are now being practiced on a monthly basis at Dunstan Farm since 2011. The court peace orders that the farmworkers won against evictions by land beneficiaries are used to consolidate these cultural rights.

Conclusion
Land redistribution reconfigured the labour reserve of the past by releasing landless and land-short peasants into self-employment in various forms of petty-commodity production in the enlarged family-farm sector. This also shifted the supply of wage labour to an increased number of differentiated capitalist farms. The semi-proletarianization of labour Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2, 2 (2013): 189211 Downloaded from ags.sagepub.com by guest on August 5, 2013

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persists, as poor peasants participate in wage labour markets to mobilize scarce resources for their own farming, but they do so with more autonomy derived from increased land access. Furthermore, in a district such as Goromonzi, where land shortages are more acute in the Communal Areas than other districts, land short peasants continue to supply wage labour to the diverse range of capitalist farms. In general, the agency of farm labourers has been strengthened particularly through the weakening of the residential labour tenancy system and the relations of dependence that it generated. New farmers are unable to exercise the social and political control over workers that former LSCFs exercised and this allows for active mobilization and resistance to super-exploitation in the capitalist farms by labourers. Nonetheless, super-exploitative tendencies continue, through low wages and residual farm compound labour tenancy in some capitalist farms. Thus, the farm compound remains a contested space and site of resistance over the control of labour between farm workers and the new capitalist farms. The micro-analysis pursued in this research exposes the dynamism and variations of the new agrarian labour relations that exist across districts. The new agrarian structure in Goromonzi, for instance, is unique from the outcomes elsewhere, insofar as it has retained a larger base of LSCFs and allocated most of the land acquired under the FTLRP to capitalist farmers, rather than to land-short peasants. The micro-analysis also illuminates the local labour processes, such as wage formation and struggles between capital and labour, that are not captured in aggregated analysis. As the process of social differentiation within and across the three modes of organization of production proceeds apace, driven by unequal access to farming resources and commodity markets, future research should explore the on-going re-organization of agrarian labour processes, including the trajectory of semi-proletarianization and its attendant political struggles. Notes
1. The present study draws on a 2006 baseline survey of 695 landholders and 173 farmworkers in Goromonzi district, supplemented by further qualitative surveys in 2012. 2. The labour estimates are derived from average labour per farm in the differentiated capitalist farms observed in the district by AIAS (2007), which were then applied to the new agrarian structure constructed in Table 1.

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3. These include electricity, first aid clinic and pre-school. 4. There have been numerous conflicts over wages between civil servants and the government since 2009; see The Herald, 9 October 2012.

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