Karoi

Karoi sits on the A1 between Chinhoyi and Makuti, on the road from Harare to Kariba and the Zambian border at Chirundu, and most people see it as a fuel stop. It is a tobacco town: the land around it was only declared farming country in 1945, when the government handed it out to white ex-servicemen, and since 2000 those farms have been split into A1 and A2 plots worked by tens of thousands of small growers. The name means little witch.

1. 1684 to 1695

   Long before there was a town, Portuguese and Goan traders held feiras, permanent market places, on the Angwa river between today's Chinhoyi (Sinoia) and Karoi, trading beads and cloth for gold washed on the upper Angwa. The Rozvi under Changamire Dombo, a rival Shona power, fought the Portuguese in 1684 and sacked their base at Dambarare in 1693, and a Portuguese friar wrote that Changamire attacked the fairs and destroyed them in 1695. Four rectangular earthworks have been described in detail; the largest is National Monument No. 70. source

2. 1939

   The steel Otto Beit suspension bridge across the Zambezi at Chirundu was built in 1939, paid for by the Beit Trust. On the A1 from Harare (Salisbury) Karoi comes at 207 km and Makuti, further north, at 292 km. The two-lane Chirundu Bridge, 90 m upstream of the old single-lane one, dates from 2002. source

3. 1945

   After the Second World War the Southern Rhodesian government declared the land around Karoi a farming area, mainly for white ex-servicemen, who were helped to set up. They grew tobacco from the start and it is still the main cash crop. Sitting on the A1, the town is the service centre for the farms around it and a supply stop for travellers and truckers. source

4. 1966 to 1979

   The liberation war, which Zimbabweans call the Second Chimurenga, opened on the road south of Karoi: on 28 April 1966 Rhodesian security forces fought ZANLA fighters at Sinoia (Chinhoyi), the first major engagement of the war, and seven of the guerrillas were killed. From 1966 to 1970 the Rhodesians held a defence line of camps along the Zambezi from Lake Kariba to the Mozambique border, and in September 1978 and February 1979 ZIPRA shot down two Air Rhodesia Viscounts as they climbed out of Kariba airport. source

5. 1985

   At the 1985 election, five years after independence, the Karoi seat went to ZANU PF's Edgar Mapiye Kwenda with 26,853 votes against 1,325 for the UANC and 751 for PF ZAPU. In 1990 Kwenda won again with 5,432 votes on an 18 percent turnout. source

6. 2000

   A new constitution was defeated at a referendum on 12 and 13 February 2000, 55 percent to 45, and from 26 and 27 February the war veterans' association led people onto white-owned farms. The government called it the Fast Track Land Reform Programme and split the land into A1 schemes for smallholders and A2 commercial farms. Zimbabwe's tobacco crop fell to less than a third of its 2000 level by 2005 and to 21 percent of it by 2008. source

7. 2005 to 2016

   In 2000 about 1,500 large-scale growers produced 97 percent of the country's tobacco. The crop bottomed out at 48 million kg in 2008. Contract growing, where the buyer supplies inputs such as seed and fertiliser, started in 2005, and by 2013 some 110,000 small-scale farmers were growing 65 percent of the crop. Four in five bales were grown under contract by 2016, and the 2018 crop came close to the 1998 record of 260 million kg. source

8. 2011

   The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board let the Mashonaland Tobacco Company open auction floors in Karoi itself. A row followed in 2012 when the floors bought leaf from farmers who were not under contract. source

Council, chiefs and growth points

Hurungwe Rural District Council sits with 26 elected councillors and three chiefs. The district has one growth point, at Magunje, and its smaller rural service centres are Kazangarare, Kasimhure, Nyamakate, Tengwe, Mwami, Zvipani, Chitindiwa, Mudzimu and Chidamoyo. Most communal land falls in natural regions 3 and 4, where the rain is low and unreliable; the A1 and A2 farms sit mostly in region 2, which gets the most dependable rain. source

Tobacco first, cotton second

Tobacco is the district's main cash crop and cotton comes next. Tengwe is a farming village south-west of Karoi. Kazangarare, about 60 km north-east of town, is tied to Mukwichi, one of the country's granaries. source

Club and church

Tengwe, about 40 km south of Karoi, is mainly tobacco country, and farming life there still runs on the country club and the church. Tengwe Country Club was built before independence and done up in 2019, and the village has congregations of the Salvation Army, the Methodists, the AFM, ZAOGA and Word of Truth Ministries. source