| Summary: | This study investigates the household and community effects that arise from tobacco farmers’ participation and performance under tobacco contract farming arrangements in Mazowe District. The provision of land to A1 Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) beneficiaries, attracted the re-entry of capitalist agriculture system and revitalised of smallholder tobacco production. Access to land was central to farmers’ participation, performance and outcomes from tobacco production. The study used the access theory framework, to track mechanisms and processes farmers followed when negotiating the use of productive resources to participate and generate income from contract farming. The study further tracks how this income was used and with what effect to the household and community. A case study using a mixed method approach was used with the qualitative aspect assessing and explaining the contextual, historical and contemporary phenomena surrounding farmer participation, performance and the use of the contract farming proceeds, all this with the aim of establishing causal links of contract farming to community effects. A quantitative analysis, based on a survey questionnaire and a sample of 150 farmers, measured the production and income outcomes of the farmers. Regression models and descriptive statistics using SPSS were used to analyse data from a survey questionnaire. The study found that contract farming benefited the household and had positive spillover effects within the community of Mazowe. Contract farming arrangements had a positive effect on employment, service provision and food security. Provision of staple food inputs, helped increase food production which was exchanged for labour.Increased income resulted in contract farmers diversifying cash crop production and investment into nonfarm activities which generated employment and service spillovers within the community. The paradox, however, is that most farmers struggled under contract farming, were indebted and dependent on the contractor, in a captive relationship, for continued tobacco production. Those who struggled had difficulty accessing cash advances for labour and assets needed to produce a quality crop. Logit results showed that resourced-farmers were more likely to participate, stay and perform well in contract farming arrangements while the poor exited. Initial resource endowments of farmers were an important determinant of the participation, production and income outcomes of participating farmers and that this was a source of social differentiation in Mazowe. FTLRP beneficiaries outperformed their communal counterparts in welfare measures tested, indicating the importance of land in rural livelihoods. After the FTLRP there was a tenfold increase in smallholder farmers producing over 84 percent of the tobacco under contract. The shift in land ownership from large scale farmers to peasants forced agribusinesses to negotiate resource providing contracts with small scale farmers. The contracts provided partial resources with the farmer needing to provide supplementary inputs and services. Prices were determined by market forces and were deemed unfair by farmers. Farmers responded to these challenges through social relationships. Access to land by deficient households, labour, production resources and better prices were negotiated through networks and social ties. Again, A1 FTLRP beneficiaries wielded more power in navigating the social relationships to their benefit, which could be attributed to their large land holdings. This study contributes to the literature by showing that contract farming benefits both the household and community. Tobacco production was revitalised by the re-entry of capital into smallholder sector, and small scale farmers mitigated the exploitative forms of capital through social relationships. For contract farming to contribute to rural livelihoods, there is a need for research to address resource endowment, power imbalance gaps and institutional arrangements that help build the poor’s asset holdings.
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