The increasing need for food production and economic development has put pressure on land resources making ownership important for sustainable agriculture in Zimbabwe. To make food production and environmental protection sustainable, agricultural practices need to take cognizance of pressure placed on the environment, and the increasing need for food in rural and urban centres. To make communities conscious and supportive of sustainable land use, food production requires that continuous increases in ecological awareness and education need to be maintained. This makes us question what and how land contributes to sustainable development. Centrally, people’s attitudes, opinions and ideas are shaped by the faith they have. This, however, takes cognizance of historical land and agricultural systems. African rural communities have successfully been undermined by colonial agricultural systems in Zimbabwe. For this reason, Africans took to arms to recover such “lost” lands, and to bring back onto the limelight Africans pushed onto the economic peripheries in the country. Tracing the history of land management in Zimbabwe, one finds that successive waves of violence to facilitate European expansion was adopted by the independent government of Zimbabwe in the Fast Track Land Reform (FTLR) of 2000 – 2003. Without legitimating or de-legitimating any wave of violence and land ownership, land reforms affected Zimbabwe’s economy in either way. Unfortunately, the translation of these policies into the living standards of ordinary people has remained questionable given the increasing poverty among rural communities. Added to this, large populations in rural communities where agricultural production continued to decrease led to unprecedented levels of land degradation. For the colonial government, poor rural communities was a positive strategy for continued labour reservoir for large-scale commercial agriculture, while the Fast Track Land Reform, many attest, was a political survival strategy for ZANU PF. In either case, the environment was affected. Further, during the colonial period, indigenous Africans were pitted against settler farmers who were out-produced by indigenous farmers (Bhebhe, 1979:5; Beinart, 1982:3). In the current scenario, Africans were out-produced by white commercial farmers, but the incumbent authority’s interests were in the majority of voters who lived in rural and urban centres. Thus the Fast Track Land Reform (FTLR) was a reversal of colonial economic systems, a subject not adequately treated in this book (Lebert, 2006). Rather, this study suggests discussing ecologically sensitive criteria for a theological discussion of land ownership and use, challenging African governments to devise indigenous solutions to ecological design. These suggestions however happen within the context of Shona, Hebrew and Christian religions. An ethical approach informed by this background, and an ecological design sensitive to religion can save the country from economic, political and ecological collapse thus achieving a theology of development.

Whilst there are economic viability, moral, productivity, egalitarian, equity and political issues that have topped academic, political and interventionist agendas since the onset of the Fast track land reform program in Zimbabwe this paper, seeks to look at the Human Security issues associated with Zimbabwe's land reform program. This paper assumes the position that the debate around land in Zimbabwe has for long been steeped in the tradition of national security focusing more on the state's functionality and economic viability and its ripple effects on general political and socio-economic issues of other states in the region. . It is therefore timely and prudent to analyze the land reform in Zimbabwe using the Human Security lens. The paper therefore seeks to focus on the 'individuals' in the state rather than the 'state' by asking the question; how has the Fast track land reform policy affected Human security in Zimbabwe?

The Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) was a government initiated reform effort to benefit a majority of land hunger-black Zimbabweans through the compulsory acquisition of vast tracks of land previously owned by white minority. Courtesy of the FTLRP, a majority of Zimbabweans benefited pieces of land with a view to improve their livelihoods. The process was chaotic and done with limited mainstreaming of the environmental principles. The qualitative study was informed by a descriptive survey and data were collected through observations and interviews with conveniently sampled land settlers and local leadership in Sovelele resettlement area. Results of the study suggests that although the FTLRP improved land ownership and livelihoods of the poor families, it also created massive environmental degradation, pollution, soil erosion, deforestation and ecological damages. The challenges are exacerbated by limited awareness and education to new settlers on the sustainable environmental and agricultural practices, and limited implementation of environmental management law and regulations in the aftermath of the FTLRP. Based on the foregoing, the study recommends concerted and integrated approach in Land Reform policy formulation and implementation for sustainable development.

The land distribution in Zimbabwe after colonization was well inclined to the white settlers and the black majorities were driven to stay in reserves, that were meant to disempower people and unfortunately these areas were infertile and this was part of the plan by whites to control blacks which later led to land reform. This was followed by a drop in the economic performance of the country, as the agricultural productivity was heavily affected and the manufacturing sector reduced productivity and the whole economy shrunk and this affected employment levels. As stated above, the effects of land reform were not just felt in agricultural sector only but in several sectors such as retailing sector in general and agriculture retailing sector in particular. Thus, this study was aimed at ascertaining the impact of the land reform program on the agricultural retailing sector in Zimbabwe. This was achieved through the use of interpretivism research approach, which relies on subjective understanding of and intervention with reality. This position is described as anti-positivist but views it as post-positivist since it is asserted that there is fundamental difference between the subject matters of natural and social sciences. The results show that there is need for retailers in the agricultural retailing sector to get into strategic alliances with suppliers in order to survive and grow in the current competitive economy. In addition, agricultural retailers should work with agricultural contractors who will offer farmers with financial assistance each farming season as outsourcing finance is a good alternative for getting assistance. Conclusively, the increase in the financing of farmers will increase sales in the agricultural retailing sector resulting in the resuscitation of the sector, which will have a positive knock effect on the Zimbabwean economy.