So apologies for the delay in answering this - I did a little digging in the secondary literature to see what I could find as I hadn't heard of any actual examples of this village-based economic unit being implemented and I wanted to make sure I got my facts straight before answering. As someone who works on Zimbabwe, it is always great to get a question which I can't answer without having to read around. Unfortunately, it seems that the answer to the question of whether this economic theory was ever implemented in practice is going to be a short, albeit confused, one: no. I've looked through all of my books on land reform or uses of the land and even mentions of the village company proposals are severely limited, and you have to turn to the NGO documents from the mid-2000s in order to find answers which begins to break the twenty year rule of this sub.

However, you got me interested so I'm going to try and answer as best I can.

First, I'm not sure how much you know about Norman Reynolds' suggestion of shaping the CAMPFIRE programme around the "village company" so I want to iterate what exactly Reynolds was proposing. His suggestion was, simply put, that the basic unit of governance in the reformed resource conservation and management system should be the "village" and specifically a form of community co-operative. His reasoning behind this was two-fold: 1) such "private community property" would reduce the risk of deliberate damage being done to the land or its resources by individuals; and 2) community based ownership would devolve the rights to benefit, manage and allocate (or sell) wild resources to a collective thus ensuring equal distribution of wealth coming from the land and resources. Furthermore, as Brian Child et al. noted in their article "Community-based natural resource management", a "village company" would specifically provide opportunity for the village to emphasize the entrepreneurial nature of localised resource management, on top of the pre-existing village and ward courts and councils. Lionel Cliffe provides some further insights into the benefits of a village based approach in his Prospects for Agrarian Transformation in Zimbabwe. Revolving around the consolidation of the infrastructure necessary in running a profitable and relatively self-sufficient village whilst permitting local groups to react to local events without reference to a national body, Cliffe argues that the 1986 Five Year Development Plan did initially include suggestions for the establishment of such village companies to integrate diverse development projects and "ease the provision of infrastructure and government services" [p.319].

Certainly the inclusion of "villagisation" was also a reflection of the situation in Zimbabwe at the time. When Reynolds originally made such suggestions in 1986, he was speaking in an environment of the minority white population still owning huge swathes of land and/or commercial farmers owning and renting land to the black African population. This separation of land from the majority population had been a persistent problem since the 1920s and the potential resolution of this question had been a motivating factor behind support for the anti-colonial movement. As a result the idea of "private community property" would have appealed to those who would have benefitted most from it - the local population who would replace private landowners.

However, as you rightly noted Mugabe and Zanu-PF were opposed to any schemes that would undermine their authority and claims to authority over the land - a lesson learnt from Ian Smith's white government during the 1970s when reductions to the racially segregatory Land Apportionment Act weakened the political position of the Rhodesian Front party as it lost claims to land control. When it was realised that the 'direct continuation of top-down betterment planning' would have been reduced in the face of this localised governance and economic structure, Zanu-PF implemented changes to CAMPFIRE that ensured collective unites like "village companies" would be unable to function without oversight from regional councils or supervisors. According to Brian Childs, Zanu-PFs known aversion to localised authority ensured that Zanu-PF officials had to be involved in order to intervene in the case of resource management. District Councils (which were already imbued with Zanu-PF officials) thus became the final level of revenue and governance, with a deliberate refusal to devolve power further to the ward or village level (a ward is usually around 6 villages).

Not all academics agree however. Rosaleen Duffy argues against this centralist political perspective [i.e. that Zanu-PF's reluctance was implemented from a top-down perspective] and instead contends that the reason why village-based units were rejected was due to localised unwillingness to devolve powers by local actors. Duffy cites Murphree's Law as an alternative explanation - each level of an organisation attempts to wrest control from the levels above it and resists the devolution of power and control of funds to the levels below it. [Killing for Conservation, p.108] The failure to implement a village-based system (and particularly a village company structure) was thus due to District Council party officials being reluctant to sacrifice power to any more localised organisations. Mugabe's belief that 'no-one would have a reason to vote for us once the law was passed' was thus not a belief exclusive to the Zanu-PF elite, but all party officials including at the district level. The result of all of this, regardless of reasons behind it, was that village based economic units or governance units did not come into fruition. Instead, CAMPFIRE and other economic reform and development programmes followed a district- and upwards-based structure that ensured Zanu-PF influence at all decision making levels, as well as control of the economic purse strings.

Interestingly Reynolds' suggestion has recently come back to the fore in the face of the widespread local government corruption and nepotism prevalent in contemporary Zimbabwe. A 2013 report by a British based NGO entitled "CBNRM in Zimbabwe: Alternative trajectories" wrote that 'Reynolds' "village company" idea would benefit an entire community, instead of only working-age and migratory capable individuals.' [p.13] showing that although such an idea did not work previously, that is not to say it might not be implemented in the future.

Hope this answers your question. If I can expand on anything, do let me know.