Abstract: For the most part of the colonial period, the production of all tobacco in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was a preserve of white settler farmers. The white settler government gave two excuses for non-participation by Africans in this industry. First, they argued that allowing Africans to grow tobacco would compromise the quality of the crop, and taint the international reputation of Southern Rhodesia as a tobacco leaf producer. This, the settler colonial state added, was because Africans lacked the sophistication to sustainably grow quality leaf. Second, Africans were patronizingly prevented from embarking on cash crop farming in general and tobacco growing in particular on the pretext that they lacked the capacity to strike a balance between cash and subsistence farming, which would result in their starvation. However, the settler government changed this policy in 1952 with respect to Turkish tobacco. For the first time, the government allowed and actively encouraged African cultivation of the crop. In doing this, they claimed that Africans’ best interests were at the center of the new policy thrust. By examining this shift in policy, and what motivated it, this paper engages broader historiographical conversations on colonial policy on African agriculture. In doing so, it historicizes current conversations on land reform in Southern Africa, particularly the question of African capacity to undertake commercial agriculture, which arose during the colonial era as it continues to do so in the post-colonial context of land reform. The paper draws on archival data from the National Archives of Zimbabwe, newspapers and Parliamentary debates, to examine these issues.