As the government moves from one humanitarian organisation to another, begging basket in hand and people sink deeper into food insecurity, what was once the country's commercial agricultural empire lies desolate, reduced to an extension of the subsistence farming sector. This work problematises the situation in the former commercial farms, and argues that, the crisis was intrinsic in the 'jambanja' process, and the subsequent state incapacity to offer post-settlement support to the new landholders. Using ethnographic data from three resettlement farms in uMguza District, it argues that 'jambanja' gave birth to subsistence landholders in commercial farming zones.These landholders were not farmers but they fulfilled a political objective for the government, which later abandoned them without any post-settlement support. Without state support, the new landholders failed the transition from a traditional agricultural system to commercial orientated production, resulting in their falling back on the agricultural system they knew best.Resettlement also interfered with traditional institutions, which have long informed African farming practices.

Two and a half decades of land reform in Zimbabwe completely changed the country's agricultural landscape. The prominent features of the new landscape were the small-family operated farms, created from the commercial farming sector. While the process has been looked at as something unique, it was another social engineering process. Although Zimbabwe is considered a crop-producing country, 60 percent of the country is either semi arid or arid, and characterised by climatic uncertainty and perennial droughts. Communities in these regions have developed a semi-proletariat culture. Livelihoods are highly diversified and heavily reliant on non-farm sources of income. This work analyses processes of land reforms in the country, including the continued commitment by the state and other actors to the small farm model. The study concludes that, the policy reflected the motives and visions of certain actors, which did not reflect rural reality in the whole of the country. This work therefore advocates for a search for a new rural development narrative that will move away from assumption about how people live their lives, and should be useful to practitioners, academics and policy-makers.