By Farai Mabeza

GOVERNMENT has been urged to create opportunities for private companies to invest in agriculture at farm level, particularly in areas that require huge capital outlays. Caleb Dengu, a director with the Zimbabwe Business Club, told a preparatory meeting for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s inaugural attendance of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the country’s agricultural reforms had ignored involvement of the private sector in agricultural production.

“We want to strengthen the agricultural value chains and corporate farming. “The land reform did not take into consideration areas where you need companies to invest. For example, if you are doing tree crops, if you want to do citrus, you will go for four years before earning any money. “This kind of capital investment is beyond the means of an ordinary farmer. “The management skills required are beyond most farmers so it will require government to have a policy to allocate some of the land to corporates to do farming so that we can get into the international agricultural space,” Dengu said.

He said such policies should include a secure land tenure to give potential investors confidence. “At the moment no one invests in a farm fearing that someone will come with an offer letter saying your tobacco is now looking good I want to take over the farm. I think the land commission must be empowered to deal with this once and for all,” Dengu added. In 2000, the government embarked on what it termed as fast-track land reform programme which saw not only individual white farmers losing land but corporates as well.

Even farms which were covered under bilateral agreements were not spared. One of the most prominent land grabs from a corporate was the seizure of Interfresh’s citrus estate by the country’s then first lady Grace Mugabe. The land loss blocked external lines of credit to the firm as traditional financiers, including the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, feared their investments were at risk.

The country’s new administration under Mnangagwa has given renewed hope to investors after vowing to follow through with promises of much-needed economic reforms. Zimbabwe’s economic backbone is commercial agriculture, which is still recovering from the land reform programme. Mnangagwa and his Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, have said they would give priority to the agriculture sector. Recently introduced reforms were designed to give agricultural firms better access to finance to help farmers buy and import equipment to increase their output. Agriculture was once a key contributor to Zimbabwe’s economy, but its contribution has dwindled to about 13 percent, according to the World Bank.

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