Conceptual Framework Land reform Land reform is the deliberate change in the way agricultural land is held or owned. The most common objective of land reform is to abolish feudal or colonial forms of land ownership, often taking away from large landowners and redistributing it to landless peasants. Land reform is also meant to improve the social status of poor people and coordinate agricultural production with industrialization programmes. A programme of land reform must be properly planned and executed so that it benefits those in need of land and ensures that resettled farmers are given proper support systems to enable them to farm the land productively. It generally denotes government measures designed for a relatively equitable redistribution of agricultural land but actual reform measures can reflect a range of ideological positions. Land reform may consist of government-initiated, or government-backed, real estate property redistribution. The process of land reform must be carried out within a legal framework and without the use of violence. There must be a transparent and accountable process of genuine land reform in the interests of those who need land. It is an often-controversial alteration in the societal arrangements whereby government administers possession and use of land. Land reform policies are generally advocated as an effort to eradicate food insecurity and rural poverty, often with a utilitarian philosophy. However, many of the arguments for land reform conflict with prevailing notions of property rights in most societies, as mentioned earlier. In most cases, the rights of the individuals for whose good the reform is supposed to work, violate the property rights of the landowners. Land reform is concerned with rights in land and their character, strength and distribution. The reform programme must ensure that women benefit fairly and directly from land resettlement, along with other marginalized individuals and families. Displacement of farm labourers must be avoided and their future assured. Land redistribution Land redistribution is the transfer of land from some individuals to others. In most cases, it refers to progressive redistribution, from the rich to the poor, although it may also refer to regressive redistribution, from the poor to the rich. Initially land redistribution was done to eradicate rural poverty but after the farm invasions led by the war veterans, it became a political issue. It is this political gimmick that disrupted the economy and violated property rights of the landowners. President Mugabe justified the exercise saying, “It is perfectly justifiable to use necessary force to overcome resistance to the transformation of the economy in favour of the black majority to achieve economic justice.”16 The redistribution exercise in Zimbabwe was justified on the grounds of having been undertaken to achieve distributive justice since the majority had no farmland but the end result did not point to distributive justice. Most of the acquired land was given to politically correct people and not to the landless majority as per the publicly expressed justification. 16 Justice for Agriculture Trust JAG and the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers' Union of Zimbabwe GAPWUZ report, Destruction of Zimbabwe's backbone industry in pursuit of political power: A qualitative report on events in Zimbabwe's Commercial farming sector since year 2000, April 2008. 6