ABSTRACT
Being part of the rural areas, small rural towns are influenced by the seasonal and climatic swings of the rural economy. They are also part of the urban system and are influenced by economic cycles and changing policies in the larger national and international economy. Agricultural cash incomes have increased rapidly in most of Zimbabwe’s communal areas during the 1980s as the size of the marketed crop has grown. However, agricultural cash incomes have fluctuated widely both seasonally and yearly, depending on rainfall. They have also been concentrated on a relatively limited number of households. Non-farm activities, remittances and local wage labour have at least partly supplemented agricultural cash incomes, although they have hardly reduced income differences. Reduced price differences have made it possible for the small rural towns to regain a large part of the rural buying power which had been spent earlier in the large towns.
