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China Pours Millions of Dollars Into Zimbabwe’s Farming Industry as Experts Fret

China Pours Millions of Dollars Into Zimbabwe’s Farming Industry as Experts Fret
A tobacco worker in Zimbabwe in a file photo. Courtesy Kenneth Matimaire
Andrew Mambondiyani
|Updated:

MUTARE, Zimbabwe—Chinese investors are investing millions of dollars into the farming sector in Zimbabwe— particularly tobacco farming—sparking experts to warn of a new agro-imperialism by Beijing.

Zimbabwe’s then-President Robert Mugabe seized millions of hectares of prime agricultural fields from white commercial farmers under a controversial land reform program, which started in 2000, and distributed the land to the indigenous black people.

Andrew Mambondiyani
Andrew Mambondiyani
contributor
Andrew Mambondiyani is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe with more than 10 years of journalism experience. He served as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT between 2010 and 2011, and in 2008 served as a Middleburry College Environment Journalism Fellow. His journalism has appeared in various local and international publications, including BBC, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Yale E360, IPs, Think Africa Press, SciDev.net, Centrepoint Now, Opendemocracy.net, and The Zimbabwean. He has a special interest in climate change, agriculture, human rights, sustainable development, and the environment in general.
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