66
cases the private sector included state farm managers, district and provincial officials, and
other government officials acting on their own account.' 24
Despite the new structure, state farms continued to experience serious difficulties, were
unable to earn profits, and achieved minimal output. Land shortages remained acute for both
smallholders and private commercial farmers inside and outside the scheme. The land
divested to smallholders was grossly inadequate to meet the needs of the local population, let
alone the thousands of displaced families who relocated in the area.'
Additional distributions of land were made within the irrigation scheme and north of the
scheme in 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992, as the state farms went bankrupt and closed. Again,
most of this land was acquired by the private sector, especially large commercial interests
such as JFS and joint-venture enterprises such as LOMACO and SEMOC. Some land was
distributed to smallholder farmers, and a few displaced people received temporary use rights.
Despite these distributions, smallholders had no tenure security, since the government has
reacquired and redistributed land in many areas of the scheme several times over in the last
few years. Thus tenure insecurity for smallholders remains a serious issue as government
continues new rounds of distribution of land rights. Provincial and central government
authorities counter that smallholders do no2t6 have the capacity to exploit lands in the irrigation
scheme or near the river or state farms.'
At the same time, research conducted in the district revealed a growing number of private
commercial interests that successfully acquired land in the area outside of the irrigation
scheme. These interests obtained land through the formal state structure, both legally and
extralegally, displacing local smallholders, some of whom had already been moved several
times. Many of these allocations were apparently acquired for speculative reasons: no
utilization of the land followed. Sources working for NGOs in the area say that many farms
in the scheme are owned by officials in Maputo, Xai-Xai, and Chokwe, and that they are not
being exploited.
The joint-venture enterprise LOMACO acquired land in the irrigation scheme in 1987
(Tanner, Myers, and Oad 1993; Myers and Tanner 1992). Local residents claim that
LOMACO got an additional parcel, part of the former Matuba State Farm, in 1990 or 1991.
Both parcels are between the road and the river northwest of the city (see area marked as
124. Myers, West, and Eliseu (1993); Myers and Tanner (1992); and Tanner, Myers, and Oad (1993).
125. Ibid.
126. This point was made numerous times during the course of our research and was repeated several times
recently during the Second National Land Conference in Maputo (see Weiss and Myers 1994). Smallholder
conferees took issue with the official government position, saying that they had not only the capacity but also
the desire to work the land. They argued further that they could work their own farms and also provide labor
to the bigger farms. Their only real problems, they said, were land shortages, insufficient credit, and cost of
pesticides and fertilizers.