IIRC, before Land Reform Zimbabwe was the only African country with a net surplus of food. Zim used to be called the bread basket of Africa.
Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful.
Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed in a lot of other ways.
The original owners of the land were highly captialised. The people receiving the land often had no experience in cultivation, and even if they did, they had zero capital. They couldn't buy seed, machinery, expertise. The money and expertise required to turn this around pretty much fled the country.
So large farms that produced vast quantities got broken up into small farms that produce almost nothing.
At one stage Zim was in talks with China to have Chinese workers come over and work the land. I don't think that ever came to be, but China is a big player in Zimbabwe still - a lot of tourism, aid, weapons and immigration (several million?) comes from China.
From what I've heard the land distribution was even worse than that -- farms were more often than not given to party hacks rather than poor farmers.
The problem seems to largely have been that the land reform wasn't actually an act for social justice so much as a populist political move. Egypt's attempt at land reform seemed much better planned:
Agreed on your other points. I don't know the politics of the Egyptian reform, but colonialism still turns this in to a very complex set of issue. Especially when you try and distinguish between social justice and populist politics.
Again, if I recall correctly, in the early days of the land reform the UK pledged funds to allow property to be bought back from land owners. I think they even contributed GBP50 million or something (drop in the ocean admittedly), but the rest of the plan was eventually knocked back.
> The original owners of the land were highly captialised.
Err... not to dispute the rest of what you say, which is accurate, but the original owners? I realize you can play that game a long way back in history, but still...
Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful.
Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed in a lot of other ways.
The original owners of the land were highly captialised. The people receiving the land often had no experience in cultivation, and even if they did, they had zero capital. They couldn't buy seed, machinery, expertise. The money and expertise required to turn this around pretty much fled the country.
So large farms that produced vast quantities got broken up into small farms that produce almost nothing.
At one stage Zim was in talks with China to have Chinese workers come over and work the land. I don't think that ever came to be, but China is a big player in Zimbabwe still - a lot of tourism, aid, weapons and immigration (several million?) comes from China.