Matabeleland food shortages. Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo finally reconciled their political differences by late 1987. The roots of discord remained, however, and in some ways increased as Mugabe's rule became increasingly autocratic into the 21st century. In the early 1990s, a Land Acquisition Act was passed, calling for the Mugabe government to purchase mostly white-owned commercial farming land for redistribution to native Africans. Matabeleland has rich central plains, watered by tributaries of the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, allowing it to sustain cattle and consistently produce large amounts of cotton and maize. But land grabbing, squatting, and repossessions of large white
Matabeleland . As for the Matabeleland Northern Province, it had a total population of 749,017 people out of the population of Zimbabwe of 13,061,239. The proportion of males and females was 48 and 52 percent respectively within an area of just over . The remaining Bulawayo province had a population of 653,337 in an area of . Thus the region has a combined population of 2,086,247 in an area of just over and that is just over the size of England. The major city is Bulawayo, other notable towns are Plumtree and Hwange. The land is particularly fertile but dry. This