Restoration of Land Acquired for Resettlement and the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe

This paper examines the effect of the land reform program on the production of main agricultural crops, which are maize and soyabean, in a bid to deduce the implications of the possible restoration of land acquired for resettlement in Zimbabwe. The interest of this paper is in response to the new legislation by the Government of Zimbabwe under which former farm holders may apply for restoration of title to the piece of agricultural land that was compulsorily acquired from them for resettlement during the 2000 Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). Contrary to cross-sectional studies done before, this study applied the Ordinary Least Squares estimation technique on time series data covering the period 1980–2019. The results show that the period after the land reform has lower maize and soyabean output per hectare compared to the period before land reform. The findings imply that the FTLRP disrupted production, which has never been restored to prior output levels; this points to the new government’s interest in the restoration of land to former farm holders to sustain agricultural production, particularly maize and soyabean.