Financialised agrarian primitive accumulation in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Mhlanga, David , Ndhlovu, Emmanuel
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Agricultural sector , New dispensation regime , Peasants
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/488733 , uj:44534 , Citation: Mhlanga, D. and Ndhlovu, E., 2021. Financialised Agrarian Primitive Accumulation in Zimbabwe. African Renaissance, 18(3), pp.185-207.
- Description: Abstract: The departure of Robert Mugabe whose 37-year authoritarian rule was ended by a military coup in November 2017 was accompanied by celebrations and much optimism. The emergent ‘new dispensation’ led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised an end to authoritarian rule, despotism, a cartelised and patronage-based economy, and economic malpractices to revive the battered economy. Agriculture would remain one of the key economic sectors with Zimbabweans themselves as the cornerstone and the strongest pillar to build a strong and sustainable economy. However, a qualitative review of land discourses and policy practices reveal the contrary. Predicated on secondary sources, and based on a discourse analysis, this article shows how the new regime has abandoned its promises and relaxed policies, thereby easing investment conditions for monopoly finance capital which now engages in financialised agrarian primitive accumulation. The result has been forcing production models for peasants, livelihoods and tenure insecurity, impending peasant displacements, and a sustained cartelised and patronage-based economy and politics reminiscent of the Mugabe era.
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The myth of the peasant in the global organic farming movement
- Authors: Barton, Gregory A.
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Organic farming , Peasants , Agricultural history
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/256965 , uj:26985 , Citation: Barton, G.A. 2017. The myth of the peasant in the global organic farming movement.
- Description: Abstract: Organic farming activists have promoted the idea that ancient peasant wisdom informed the basic principles or Albert Howard’s Indore method, and of organic farming generally. The myth of the peasant origins of organic farming has influenced environmental activists and historians alike and concealed the remarkable contributions of Albert Howard and his first and second wives, Gabrielle and Louise Howard. A few statements made by Howard himself, and by his second wife, Louise, inspired the myth of peasant origins of organic wisdom. But a closer look at the published and unpublished writings of the Howards show that the formulation of the Indore method, which lies at the heart of organic farming, is a strict scientific protocol with its roots in the scientific work of Albert Howard and his cohorts.
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