White farmer reclaims farm
04/01/2011 00:00:00
by Ngoni Chanakira
AGRICULTURE Minister Herbert Murerwa has confirmed that at least one white
former commercial farmer has been allowed back on his land after the
government kicked out the black beneficiary for not using the property.
The white farmer – who cannot be named as authorities want to protect him
from victimization by war veterans – had also been challenging the
government’s acquisition of the property in the courts.
“Yes I can confirm that we gave back the farm to the white commercial farmer
last year. However this was mainly because the black farmer was not farming
at all,” Murerwa said in an interview.
“I want to warn all those who are not take us seriously that we will
repossess their farms if they do not do anything on them expecting
everything from government.”
The government has been threatening to repossess land from beneficiaries of
its controversial farming reforms who are not making productive use of the
land.
President Robert Mugabe recently said he was outraged to learn that some of
the new farmers were giving their lands back to white ex-owners in leasehold
deals under which the pairs share profits.
Some 120 evicted farmers have since returned to their properties under the
lease deals.
New farmers continue to find it difficult to put their lands to productive
use due to the lack of resources as financial institutions are largely
reluctant to provide funding.
However, Murerwa insisted that the fact that farming was a capital intensive
business was no reason to allow vast tracts of land to lie fallow.
“Yes it is very expensive to farm especially buying inputs such as
fertilizers. But I can say some black farmers are doing well.
“These include Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa and Paddy Zhanda as well as
President Robert Mugabe. They are doing the nation proud,” he said.
After suffering a decline over the last decade due to the reforms and
droughts Zimbabwe’s agriculture is now on the recovery path.
Production of tobacco – a key export for the country – is particularly
booming with thousands of small-scale farmers joining the industry.
“If you go back 10 years, we had 8,500 growers growing on average about 10
hectares each. This year we had 50,000 growing units growing on average
one-and-a-third hectares,” Andrew Matibiri, chief executive of the Tobacco
and Marketing Industry Board (TIMB) said recently.
Export earnings from the crop are this year expected to reach US$500 million
compared to the $US274 million realized last year.