Introduction
Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform programme (FTLRP) had varying effects on former farmworkers’ livelihoods across the country. Instead of taking an inclusive trajectory as enshrined in the land policy (GoZ 1998), the FTLRP excluded certain individuals and social groupings such as farmworkers (Sachikonye 2003; Mutangi 2010). Farmworkers who had for years depended on the large-scale commercial farmers for their livelihoods suffered a huge blow at the inception of the FTLRP, which turned a blind eye to their existence (Hanlon, Manjengwa, and Smart 2013). According to Chambati (2011), farm labour constituted 26% of the wage labour force by 1999. This made the agricultural sector a significant employer in post-colonial Zimbabwe and any negative adjustments to such a critical sector could mean jeopardising the livelihoods of millions of people who directly and indirectly depended on it. The white farms employed two distinct categories of farmworker, that is, permanent and casual workers. The majority of permanent farmworkers lived on farm compounds whilst the casual workers were from nearby communal areas (Hanlon, Manjengwa, and Smart 2013). A significant number of the permanent workers in the pre-1980 period had foreign origins which is the reason why they stayed on the farms and served as permanent workers (Derman and Hellum 2007). However, Chambati and Moyo (2007) estimate that 40% of male permanent workers maintained some communal ties suggesting they had a Zimbabwean nationality. Scoones (2016) notes that there were 300,000 and 350,000 permanent and temporary farmworkers working on large-scale farms and estates before 2000.
Under the FTLRP, while some commercial farms were parcelled out to smallholder farmers, others were simply reallocated to black farmers who wished to venture into commercial farming. The bulk of the permanent farmworkers on the commercial farms remained in the farm compounds where they offered to work for the new black farm owners. In this study, we were interested in the commercial farmworkers who remained on the farms to provide labour to the new black farm owners post-FTLRP. Most of these workers were excluded from land allocations. The farmworkers however were largely left living in the compound houses on the farms and any case were expected to continue providing labour. Selling their labour as a livelihood option has however become limited and unreliable. This has resulted in livelihoods diversification as a measure to curtail hunger and starvation.
Farmworkers in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe
Farmworkers occupy a peculiar space within debates on land reforms in post-colonial Zimbabwe. This peculiarity needs to be understood within a context of a curious colonial history in which cheap farm labour was the backbone of white extractive capital. Moyo, Rutherford, and Amanor-Wilks (2000, 181) succinctly summarise the problematic position of farmworkers under colonial rule, arguing that:
During the colonial period, farmworkers were not considered as a relevant category in discussions of the racial land division in Rhodesia. Instead, the concern was balancing (in a highly unequal manner) the ‘needs’ of European farmers with those of ‘natives’. Farmworkers, most of whom were foreign-born or -descended, were viewed as completely tied to the white farm(er)s and thus ignored.
The colonial and post-colonial governments have thus in different ways propagated the continued marginalisation of farmworkers. Under colonisation, Rutherford (1994, 28) highlights the Masters and Servants Act of 1899, which:
… governed labour relations on commercial farms according to the patronizing assumption that the white farm owner knows what is best for the workers. Under that Act there was no minimum wage. Rather, wages were significantly lower than in other industries on the pretext that the farmer also provided rations and housing to the workers. Disciplinary proceedings against workers were permitted for an incredibly wide range of actions, including insulting the farmer's wife or children and refusing to obey a master's command. Nor was it uncommon for farmers to take the law in their own hands and mete out physical punishment against their workers.
The state of post-colonial white farms’ labour relations has received a fair share of intense and often polarised debate. This debate tends to provide a narrow understanding of farm labour histories and often offers a rewriting of specific histories divorced from disaggregated experiences of farmworkers. The first school of thought argues that farmworkers were living a relatively protected and cosy life under the benevolence of the white farming class. The belief is that land reform thus has severely decimated their access to jobs and incomes (see: Marongwe 2002; Masiiwa and Chigejo 2003; Sachikonye 2003; Magaramombe 2004). The second school of thought tends to romanticise the empowering nature of FTLRP opening up new livelihood spaces, freedom and labour arrangements. It tends to emphasis the emergence of a radicalised and empowered class of farmworkers (Chambati 2009; Hartnack 2009; Chambati 2011; Scoones 2016). Scoones (2016, n.p.) argues that ‘a recurrent theme is the sense of new freedoms, but also extreme challenges and precarity’. Yet all his cases point towards an improving and flourishing former farmworker community which is utilising newfound opportunities. Chambati (2013, 17) goes further to argue that in Goromonzi,
the politics of labour entail organising themselves through high wage demanding specialist labour groups and workers’ committees to resist exploitative working conditions. They are increasingly relying on state institutions such as courts to protect and consolidate their land and socio-cultural rights.
Hartnack (2009, 357) goes further to outline how farmworkers were not mere victims of land reform but remained important actors with agency to respond and innovate around their set of circumstances. He argues:
… workers used their ingenuity, skills and resourcefulness to manipulate the farm system to their own advantage. Farmworkers may have been subordinated within capitalist relations of power, dependent on paternalism for survival, marginalized and stigmatized within society in general and made to feel insecure, but this did not stop them from learning how to benefit from and adapt to their situation.
The loss of permanent worker status on farms was widespread after FTLRP. Scoones et al. (2018, 7) argue that before 2000 there were an estimated 350,000 permanent and contract workers on the farm:
This employment was largely replaced by contract work arrangements, reflecting the fluid situation on those commercial farms that were still operational, and the weak capacity of the A2 farmers to employ labour given their lack of financial resources and lower production capacity. While casualisation of labour has a historical basis in Zimbabwe even under colonisation, it increased in intensity post-2000. Since 2002, labour absorption is very low and employment patterns are influenced by the limited farming operations and reliance on rainfed cropping on many of the new farms. The FTLRP led to the scaling-down of operations and the seasonal nature of agriculture at some farms meant that the workers often suffer long periods of unemployment and reduced income. This situation is worsened by the fact that A1 farmers have traditionally tended to rely on unpaid family labour in working their smallholdings. It is also important to note here that farm wages have historically been low and it is difficult to ascertain whether they have increased or decreased post-FTLRP. Farmworkers and domestic workers make up some of the lowest paid and least protected worker groups in Zimbabwe. The conditions of work and incomes for agriculture peaked in 1982 when the government had adopted the Riddell Commission's recommendation to have a minimum wage but this slowly declined and post-2000 real wages continue to decline on the farms.Relations between farmworkers and new farmers on FTLRP farms
The relationship between landowners, farmworkers and new settlers was not always cordial; in some areas there was co-existence, in others there were serious tensions. For instance, anecdotal evidence shows that there was less violence in the Midlands province because land transfer proceeded on the basis of negotiations. However, as Sachikonye (2003, 69) notes, the relationships created uncertainties because – in a sense – farmworkers acted as a kind of buffer between the white farmer and the settlers. At the same time, the workers were hostages of the situation: they may have wanted land also, but they could not agitate for it openly and be seen to be joining the settlers. Some farmworkers did join the settlers, not in their own workplace but on neighbouring farms. In their case studies, Moyo et al. (2009, 108) show the mistrust between settlers and former farmworkers, the latter perceived as anti-land reform. Land beneficiaries accuse former farmworkers of refusing to work for new farmers and are thus perceived to be against the FTLRP. On the other hand, former farmworkers allege that land beneficiaries are poor employers who pay sub-economic wages for their labour services. The mistrust between former farmworkers and land beneficiaries was bred during the period of land occupations, when the former tended to forge alliances with white farmers in defence of the existing farm against land occupiers (although in some cases farmworkers were mobilised by war veterans to join the land occupation movement with other peasants from the communal areas) (Sadomba 2008).
Before the FTLRP, farmworkers worked for one farmer who offered them accommodation, but after the reform there could be 30 to 40 farmers on one former commercial farm mainly using family labour. There are both advantages and disadvantages for farmworkers within this new system. Sachikonye (2003, 69) notes that, nationally, the predominant relationship used to be that between 4500 white landowners and 300,000–320,000 farmworkers. Now the relationship is between about 300,000 small-farmer households and 30,000 black commercial farmers on the one hand; and on the other hand the remaining farmworkers (working for either A1 or A2 farmers) and former workers. There are no precise figures on how many farmworkers remain employed, nor is it possible to trace where all the former workers are. But a new pattern of social relations is emerging. By and large, the ‘settlers’ (i.e. new farmers) have been the primary beneficiaries of land reform, while farmworkers have mainly been losers. Whereas the authorities interpret the success of reform in terms of the relocation of 300,000 ‘settlers’, they in large part ignore the fate of the 300,000 farmworkers. The success of land reform should be judged on the basis of whether all social groups benefited from it. Farmworkers have largely failed to access land under resettlement. During land allocations only a few farmworkers got land. Chiweshe (2012) shows that in Mazowe while there were no specific farms were allocated to farmworkers, beneficiaries were also encouraged to set aside land for them as the former owners used to do. The only few examples of farmers getting land were at a few farms such as the A1 at Usk. Chiweshe (Ibid., 140) notes:
There are four former farmworkers who were given plots on the farm of 2.5 hectares each. A number of small plots of 1–3 acres were left out during pegging of plots, and these were given to the four workers by the sabhuku (headman) to use (these are known as farmworker plots.). The four held senior positions under the white farmer such as assistant manager, mechanic and irrigation supervisor. The A1 farmers thought it wise to retain such staff so that they would help the new farmers with the skills they had acquired.
Theorising agency and livelihoods in vulnerable communities
Our understanding of the various livelihood and coping mechanisms is based on the concept of agency. Agency in the context of this research is not meant to romanticise the various livelihood strategies of farmworkers. It is rather utilised to provide a nuanced analysis of how vulnerable groups often respond to multiple factors that inhibit their livelihoods. This is why we also chose Giddens' structuration theory to ensure that we do not discuss the agency of farmworkers outside the constraining structures that define their everyday existence. Giddens (1984) argues that social practices are created from the intersection of structures and agents. Structure and agency cannot be separated: they are connected to one another in what Giddens has termed the duality of structure. Human actors have agency which allows them to build up society's structures by means of invested values and norms yet at the same time those structures constrain human behaviour (Clarke 1991). In the context of this paper this theory allows us to understand how structural issues such as loss or casualisation of employment impact on individual farmworkers and how they use agency to respond to these challenges. The theory allows us to explore how farmworkers in our study are able to develop coping mechanisms even when facing serious structural constraints. ‘Society only has form, and that form only has effects on people, in so far as structure is produced and reproduced in what people do’ (Giddens and Pierson 1998, 77).
Giddens (1984) recognises actors as having reflexive, contextual knowledge, and that habitual, widespread use of knowledgeability institutionalises structures. Farmworkers in this study are thus knowledgeable agents who actively participate in the production of their social reality. Structuration however allows us to avoid romanticising the agency of farmworkers to the extent that we underplay the structural constraints of their survival and the abject poverty under which many live. We do not wish to overemphasise their ability to restructure the historical marginalisation and inequality within which they have existed in colonial, post-colonial and post-FTLRP periods. Our aim is to highlight how over the years they have responded to the multiple and often intersecting forms of exclusion and poverty. We provide a nuanced analysis of the various complexities within which farmworker livelihoods occur with the aim of highlighting their everyday experiences as a marginal group in rural Zimbabwe.
We were mainly interested in establishing the nature and efficacy of livelihood strategies pursued by compound farmworkers post-FTLRP. It was thus important to employ a qualitative research paradigm. The study focused on an in-depth analysis of farmworkers living on one purposively sampled A2 farm. The choice of one farm was necessitated by the need to ensure a nuanced analysis through an immersion into the everyday livelihood practices of farmworkers. In a period spanning 17 months, we were able to observe the compound resident farmworkers’ livelihoods, and hold 20 in-depth interviews, five key informant interviews and five focus group discussions with different groups of farmworkers. The period was deliberately selected with the aim of following the different livelihoods across the different seasons. Observation of activities throughout the year provided interesting glimpses into the seasonality of farmworker livelihood options. Farmworkers regularly said: ‘we have nothing to hide about our welfare’. The farmworkers were also forthcoming in sharing their life experiences regarding their employment status and different livelihood options. The many field trips to the farm also helped to observe the nature of the farmworkers’ livelihoods. For example, on one of the visits, we found three young men selling fish in a large bucket. They sold me the whole bucket of fish at US$15 yet the price in urban centres was four times higher.
The study site is masked because we promised the farmworkers anonymity given that some of their stated livelihood options are deemed illegal. The farm under study changed hands in 2004. The new owner, a black farmer, replaced the white farmer and inherited a compound full of farm labourers. The new owner reluctantly participated in the interviews to highlight his own views on farm labour. Although the exact number of households at the time of farm reclamation could not be established, the farm compound is currently home to 73 households. The farm is situated about 40 kilometres in the eastern side of Chinhoyi town, in Mashonaland West Province, a high-potential agro-ecological region. It is located 100 kilometres west of the capital city, Harare. To the north of the farm is the old business centre Banket. Only a distance of about 20 kilometres separates Trost farm (not its real name) from Banket. Even though the farm is geographically sandwiched between these relatively busy business towns, it still retains a strong rural character. The residents of the farm, though they can easily access Banket, Chinhoyi and Harare, seem to remain on the farm most of the time. The majority of the farmworkers can spend half a year without visiting either Chinhoyi or Harare, and about three months before visiting Banket. Such visits are not essential as the compound has five small retail shops which sell most of the products they require.
Farmworkers’ livelihoods
Earlier research indicates the limited capacity of farmworkers to engage in alternative livelihoods (Amanor-Wilks 1995; Magaramombe 2004; Moyo 2004) and that workers are overly dependent on farm employment. This leaves workers vulnerable in the event of the termination of farm employment. The farmworkers are thus forced to engage in short-term, often illicit and unsustainable survival strategies. The diverse livelihood options pursued by the compound farmworkers not only fail to grant them a fair income, but are also unsustainable. Most farmworkers have confessed that the FTLRP had negatively affected their livelihoods. They argued that farm labour had shrunk to an extent that they had stopped considering themselves farmworkers. They are called up to work on very rare occasions and their earnings of US$3 per day prove to be insufficient for their daily upkeep. They normally use the money they get to pay off the debts that they have accrued during their unemployment periods.
The farm compound is home to 123 adult men and women constituting 73 households. Out of 123 adults, which this study regarded as farmworkers, only eight are employed on a permanent basis. These include four tractor drivers, three security guards and one manager. The eight constitute the critical skills needed by the farmer. This leaves out 115 men and women serving as casual workers. These 115 casual workers never get employed all at once. They are selected according to the labour demands at that particular time. No one is guaranteed employment at any particular time. The farm manager picks the ones he likes using a different criterion each time. But the most common criterion is on a first-come basis. Sometimes, depending on the type of work to be done, the manager selects those he believes to be more capable and hardworking. One casual worker lamented:
He handpicks his friends all the time and claims that they are the ones who work hard and don't give him much trouble. We are the black sheep at this farm. We have to do a lot of begging all the time to get listed or else we go the whole farming season without jobs and no income. I have a wife who can also work but she never gets the job except when its harvesting time when more hands are required. My four children are all out of school now because I can't raise enough for their fees. This life is a misery.
Tobacco farming is the major activity on the farm. Although there is an irrigation facility and a big dam, the new farmer only takes an interest in tobacco, which he believes to have high returns. The casual workers are therefore normally hired during the planting and harvesting times. And during off-season, these workers have no income. They are therefore forced to pursue other means of earning an income. The farm has since downsized in terms of production making it economically unviable to employ all the workers on a full-time or permanent basis. According to the farm manager, the former white farmer used to plant over 100 hectares of tobacco, but the new farmer manages only 40 hectares. The new farm owner explains his situation:
The banks and tobacco contractors have a bias for white farmers. They don't want to give us the same loans that they used to extend to white farmers. This is the main reason why I have decided to cut down on production. These guys (workers) keep on pestering me for jobs. But how can I employ all of them when my labour requirements are now less than half of the murungu (former white farmer). They just have to understand that things have changed. It's not that I want them to suffer, but there is simply nothing I can do with them.
The increased casualisation of labour under the new black farmer needs to be understood in the context of the post-2000 economic crisis, which impacted on the ability of the new farmers to raise capital. Government programmes to support commercial farming have largely failed to reach the majority of farmers who still depend on their own resources to finance activity. This affects their ability fully to employ farmworkers. Before the farm was taken by the new farmer, all the households used to access electricity in their homes. They still continued to access electricity until June 2016. The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority disconnected the power due to non-serviced bills. The new owner claimed that the former white owner left a large electricity bill which he could not clear. When electricity was disconnected, the workers tried to pressure the new owner to pay off the debt so that they could get access to electricity, but this did not yield any positive results. Later on in December, the farm house started getting access to electricity, but still the compound remained without. In the evenings, most people gather by the bar located at the western part of the compound to dance to music, drink beers and chat. The bar belongs to the farm manager, who managed to secure a generator to power the premise.
Alternative livelihood options
Both the permanent and casual farmworkers find their incomes from the farm inadequate to sustain them. Faced by insufficient incomes, the farmworkers tend to pursue a plethora of livelihood options, farm based and off-farm. The most senior compound residents have some small fields given to them by the former owner. They still retain these pieces of land to this day. But the majority of the households without such land have to look out for off-farm livelihoods. One of the participants noted the challenges they have to endure to feed their families:
Our experiences here are beyond what you guys can understand. Almost every week we have to rise early to go to the farm to try our luck for part-time employment. Sometimes a false alarm circulates that tomorrow they will be recruiting some new workers, and we have to go, only to learn that someone had lied to us. But each time such false information filters in the compound, most of us rise early to try again and again.
Bricklaying
Most young men consider brick-moulding a more rewarding livelihood activity when compared to farm work. Bricklaying is however seasonal. People start moulding bricks for sale after harvesting when there is much water. They normally work in groups because the work requires great physical exertion. Few women join bricklaying and then normally at a household level. People put themselves in small groups of about five. Once the bricks are ready, marketing begins. Sometimes they start by marketing before moulding the bricks. But even without a ready market, people still have to mould bricks before the rains come, when the moulding instantly stops. Marketing proved to be an uphill task for the brick-moulders. Most of them relied on neighbouring plot holders for a market. Nobody on the compound ever bought bricks. Those that wanted to build a hut would always mould the bricks on their own. On rare occasions the farm owner would also buy some bricks. The main market was therefore only to be found outside. There is thus limited build-up of capital in this venture because of market size and seasonal constraints.
Market gardening
Market gardening is one of the most popular economic activities ventured into by many compound households. Almost half of the compound households have a garden that they use to grow vegetables such as rape, covo (a brassica), cabbages, carrots, okra, tomatoes and onions. Watering normally happens in the evenings after farm work for those that are employed. Most compound residents with market gardens complained that there are no customers for their produce. One respondent noted that:
Almost everyone here has some form of a garden. Others only keep a small garden for home consumption whilst people like us actually do market gardening as a form of livelihood. Now the problem is, if everyone does gardening, so who buys the vegetables. Those that want the vegetables always have no money. They are either out of job, or the salary comes late.
Piecework
A significant number of the compound residents claimed to rely on piecework offered by neighbouring farmers. New farmers on these farms sometimes offer temporary jobs (maricho) especially during the ploughing season. Farmers find it cheaper to hire labour and agree on a fee per day or according to specific tasks. This is cheaper than employing full- time workers. Workers from neighbouring farms also come to the farm to seek piecework which they sometimes get because they may agree to receive less payment. The farmers therefore feel that it is only fair for them to visit the farms where these people come from also to get piecework. The type of outside jobs they do range from relatively skilled to less skilled ones. Some are hired to build Blair toilets, tobacco bans, fowl runs, protected wells and some small houses/huts. Others are hired to work on the fields planting and harvesting different crops. This work is not always readily available.
Selling fish
A group of young men also engage in fisheries to augment their livelihoods. They rely more on the farm dam. They however posit that the dam does not have enough fish, a reason which finds them trying other dams on neighbouring farms. They note that fishing in those other dams poses a lot of challenges since they are always treated as poachers. They reported that most of the times they are chased away. In one very bad scenario, three young men narrated their ordeal when they were beaten up and lost their fishing nets. On that day, they even lost their day's catch. Given such dangers, the young men have now resorted to doing the fishing during the night when everyone is asleep. Fishing in the night, according to these fish bonga (the nickname given to illegal fishers), exposes them to the danger of crocodiles, which cannot be easily detected in the dark. In narrating their fishing ordeal, one outspoken fish bonga reports:
People in neighbouring villages also rely on fishing for their livelihoods. So when we go to their dams, we are definitely competing with them which makes them unwilling to see us around. To them, we constitute poachers. We are therefore left with no option but to fish during the night, and have to grapple with all dangers associated with the night.
Selling firewood
Firewood provides another natural-resource-based livelihood option. This activity has however decreased over the years as few people are even involved in it at present. One participant noted that there are two major reasons for the decline of this livelihood option. The first is the increasing difficulty in finding firewood mainly because of the continued use of trees as the main energy source in rural spaces. Finding firewood even for household consumption is challenging. Second is the problem of distance to the main Harare road where the market for firewood is viable. Travelling to the road and back is taxing and requires a motor vehicle which most farmworker households do not have.
Illicit livelihood options
There are livelihood options utilised by farmworkers but which are deemed illegal and have stigma attached to them. Respondents in our study alluded to these livelihoods in a way that suggested that such activities were being carried out on other farms and not on this particular one. These livelihood activities include sex work, illicit beer brewing and gold panning. There are thus multiple and increasingly important non-farm livelihood options chosen by the farmworkers to earn a living.
The wisdom and efficacy of diversifying livelihoods
It is clear that in pursuing other livelihood options the farmworkers are endowed with agency which they tap into when their livelihoods are under threat: resident compound farmworkers making a deliberate decision to alter their circumstances. This is consistent with Giddens’ (1984) postulation that actors are knowledgeable agents who make efforts to bring difference to their social world. As noted by Ritzer and Goodman, actors ‘continuously monitor their own thoughts and activities as well as their physical and social contexts’ (2004, 510). In the case of the farmworkers, in realising the loss of income from the services they used to offer pre-FTLRP, and as part of the day-to-day monitoring of their physical and social contexts, they make efforts to rationalise their world. This they do through the creation of routines which give them some sense of security. They embark on a cocktail of economic activities that they hope will have the potential to restore the security of their livelihoods. Also further to this, the farmworkers have wants and desires which prompt action. These wants and desires form what Giddens conceives as motivations which become the primordial basis for action.
In addition, in realising the shortcomings of one livelihood option, the resident compound farmworkers decided to diversify their livelihoods. Thus, in this case, they engaged in piecework on other farms and plots, work on market gardening and in the moulding of bricks for sale, among other economic activities. The main concern was to improve their security and bring a difference to their lives. It is however important to note that these new livelihoods do not just appear in a temporal and spatial void. Giddens (1989) brings our attention to the importance of considering both the temporal and spatial context of the different types of livelihoods selected by the farmworkers. Their livelihoods can be best understood within their different temporal contexts, for example: fishing, brick moulding and trapping mice for sale are seasonal. Even market gardening is practised normally during the late afternoon, the time at which the workers will have finished working in the fields.
Unfavourable circumstances that negate secure livelihoods
Although Giddens (1984) emphasises why actors select certain courses of action in a way that manifests their agency, he is awake to the existence of some constraining powers. He argues that structure ‘is always both constraining and enabling’ (Ibid., 25, 163). The structures, which in this case are generally depicted by poverty, not only constrain, but also force, the farmworkers to respond with innovative livelihood strategies. The workers are in a number of ways forced by poverty to do certain things that are aimed at ending their misery. Poverty constrains the ability of farmworkers to meet their household needs. There could be better livelihood options available, but because they require substantial resources or assets, which the compound resident farmworkers do not have, they are never pursued. The same impediments that constrain the farmworkers somehow temper the outcome of the livelihood options they select. This situation is described by Giddens (Ibid.) as the law of unintended consequences of intended actions. In as much as the farmworkers intend their selected livelihood options to give them a reprieve from their poverty challenges, they find themselves either worsening their situation or inviting new problems.
One of the reasons why unintended consequences always feature in people's grand plans to alter their undesirable circumstances is captured in the Marxian influence on Giddens’ Structuration Theory. Marx aptly points out that, ‘Men make history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past’ (1869/1963, 15). The circumstances in which the compound farmworkers find themselves, and the circumstances in which they make choices, are not exclusively determined by them. The past, which is the land resettlement exercise, has bequeathed on them a condition of poverty and powerlessness which they always have to contend with whenever they make choices. As argued by Mutangi, ‘The problem is that those who are working with these workers claim to know the real issues on the ground but only to realise that the policies they formulate are anti-farmworkers’ (2010, 1). Chambati and Magaramombe (2008) had also noted earlier on that the farmworkers’ condition had become an abandoned question.
There are no policies on rural development that directly speak to the needs of farmworkers, or at least the government never appears to be concerned by their condition. The arrogance of the state to help farmworkers is succinctly represented by the utterances of a one former top government official, Eddison Zvogbo, who remarked in the Copenhagen Conference of 2001, ‘they have a farmworker culture [so they don't deserve government support]’ (Derman and Hellum 2007, 176). Farmworkers make very difficult choices in a context that does not give them the necessary support they need to create sustainable livelihoods. As far back as 1981, the Riddell Commission (Riddell 1981), on observing the social conditions on some commercial farms which they considered to be ‘below an acceptable standard of human decency’ noted that, ‘it is clear that some fundamental changes are necessary to improve the pay, working and living conditions on commercial farms’. Echoing the Riddell Commission, Hanlon, Manjengwa, and Smart (2013, 194) also note that, ‘Farmworkers have always been the lowest paid, with the worst working and living conditions’.
Sustainability issues
Most livelihood options selected by farmworkers only serve as a ‘resting pillar’ for their misery. As has been remarked by one of the respondents, ‘we have no better option’; most of these livelihoods are a knee-jerk response to the gnawing poverty that they have to grapple with each day of their lives. For instance, some farmworkers tend to pursue market gardening as a business venture, despite the clear signs that it cannot improve their condition. Also, market gardening has notably some dire (unintended) consequences for the environment as most gardens are located on the steep slopes of the river bank. The continuous cultivation of land on the riverbanks results in increased silting of dams, which is probably partly the reason why in 2016 the dam dried up for the first time in years. One other problem caused by the nature of the selected forms of livelihood options is represented by increased ecological depletion. The firewood business has literally maimed the once ever-thicket forest. As could be observed even by a passer-by, the vegetation cover has degenerated to bald ground. Veld fires are started everywhere around the farm as farmworkers look for mice both for consumption and for sale. This has decimated the natural habitat for wild animals which used to be seen in the area. These livelihoods challenge environmental sustainability.
Farmworkers in the post-Mugabe era
It is important to provide here a brief note of emergent issues in the political economy of Zimbabwe that have a direct link to the livelihoods of farmworkers discussed here. The land question in Zimbabwe has entered a new phase after President Mugabe was overthrown by a military coup and replaced by his erstwhile vice-president and confidante, Emmerson Mnangagwa. The rise of Mnangagwa is providing new questions and pathways towards and beyond Zimbabwe's land question. Farmworkers are however conspicuous in their absence in all the policy and political pronouncements around land in this period. They are again forgotten as the Mnangagwa government plans to reduce land sizes and open up new land for resettlement. Unlike other vulnerable groups such as women who now have constitutional provisions supporting their claims to resettlement land, farmworkers do not have any remedy or mechanism to enhance their land access. The new government has also not addressed the multiple challenges of poverty, discrimination, poor working conditions and poor remuneration facing farmworkers. Their precarious livelihood situations are thus likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
The study has noted that Zimbabwe's FTLRP, despite its noble intentions, created profound problems for certain sections of society such as farmworkers. The study showed that there is generally low labour absorption by new black farmers and that employment patterns are influenced by the limited farming operations and reliance on rainfed cropping on many of the new farms. Employment patterns have been mostly influenced by lack of financial and other resources by the new farmers. The inevitable scaling-down of operations due to the reform programme and the seasonal nature of agriculture at some farms mean that the workers often suffer long periods of unemployment and reduced income. The farmworkers in this study employ multiple innovative ways to cope with the reduced income. The research concludes that individuals are knowledgeable actors who are driven by wants and desires to forge livelihood options geared towards poverty amelioration. However, people's knowledge has limitations. There are certain outcomes that elude them at the time of livelihood selection which normally antagonise their intended actions. The temporal and spatial context in which farmworkers exist does not help matters as this presents few or no stimulants to the success of different livelihood options. It is noteworthy that the government of Zimbabwe neglected the farmworkers in the FTLRP. It is only fair and just for the government to consider the plight of these farmworkers and afford them an opportunity to acquire land just like their rural counterparts. It is also prudent for the government to enforce a reasonable minimum wage for them so that they can make a decent living. Apart from remuneration, farmworkers’ living and working conditions also need to be inspected and improved with the help of government agencies.