“All we need is Food…” Rural Politics and Peasant Struggles Amidst Unresolved Land Question in Southern Malawi

Abstract

Peasants in Thyolo and Mulanje[1] districts in Malawi have been at constant loggerheads with estate owners over the issue of land usage. With dwindling land-holdings among peasants chiefly due to high population growth and highly skewed land ownership (and usage) towards the tea estate owners, scores of peasants have managed to occupy idle tea estate lands to reproduce themselves. Livelihoods have relatively changed to this group of peasants, for the better. This study was done to understand the political processes surrounding access to tea plantation land and everyday peasant resistance initiatives. Using qualitative research design, results showed that a portion of peasants has managed to occupy idle estate land for over a decade now while majority still swim in land poverty. The number of new land occupants continues increasing with increased pressure from poverty. The peasants ‘sugar-coat’ their occupation by occupying only idle estate land, and forming local-level mechanisms to deter other peasants from vandalizing estate crops. The occupied lands have bred ‘village-rich’ group of people who have acquired much wealth (at village level) from the land while others barely survive. With widespread insecurity of tenure in the occupied lands, the study recommends formal restitution of idle land to locals as a poverty reduction initiative.

DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-5-05

Publication date:May 31^st 2020

[1] Thyolo and Mulanje are the two tea-growing districts in southern Malawi. Huge thatches of land are used to grow the same. The estates are largely foreign owned. In the article, Thyolo and Mulanje districts; and Southern Malawi will be used interchangeably.