Divided opinions on radical land reform at thesis defence

Was the land reform in Zimbabwe in the year 2000, when thousands of white farmers were forced off their land, a disaster or a success for the country? A success, in the view of Professor of Development Studies Ian Scoones from the University of Sussex, who served as the faculty examiner for a Lund thesis on Zimbabwe. The author of the thesis was not quite as positive. In the early 2000s, the media's reporting from Zimbabwe was dominated by startling disaster headlines concerning Mugabe's land reforms: white farmers were driven off their well-functioning farms and almost 12 million hectares of land were distributed to Mugabe's political supporters. The Zimbabwean economy was ruined, resulting in a food crisis. Ten years after the land reform, Ian Scoones did a study of the Masvingo province in southern Zimbabwe. His study overturned the prevailing view; two thirds of the farmers on the occupied land were 'normal' Zimbabweans and only five per cent could be considered to belong to the political elite. Moreover, Ian Scoones showed that the economy had begun to blossom again and that new agricultural companies had developed.