Only 300 commercial farmers left
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
There are only 300 white commercial farmers actively engaged in farming in
Zimbabwe, the former President of the influential Commercial Farmers Union,
John Laurie, has confirmed.
18.06.1101:26pm
Ngoni Chanakira Harare
In an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the recent agriculture
workshop Laurie said others were doing contract farming, which is more
lucrative.
“I stopped because of the problems facing commercial farmers in Zimbabwe,”
he said.
“In Zimbabwe there were about 4 5000 white commercial farmers before 2000.
This has continued to dwindle to about 600 and then 400 and now about 300
are left practicing their trade.”
A senior CFU official said some farmers were available to train new
commercial farmers who had been given large farms by the Mugabe regime under
the controversial Land Resettlement Programme undertaken in 2000.
“I think they would be interested in training the new farmers. In fact, they
are very keen on being mentors for the country. But maybe we need to train
them first – because some of them can farm but they can’t train.”
He confirmed Laurie’s estimate saying, “We have between 30 and 40 farmers
per province right now so 300 would be a correct figure for the whole
industry to-date. Some are, however, not farming so you can see how
difficult it is to place a finger on the exact numbers.
Former Indigenous Commercial Farmers Union President, Davison Mugabe, said
some former commercial white farmers were returning to Zimbabwe.
“They were given farms from collateral guaranteed by the Government of
Zambia at good inflation rates,” Mugabe said.
“However, things have now changed and some of them are returning to Zimbabwe
especially after dollarisation. I do not know the number but I can tell you
that indeed some white former commercial farmers are coming back to Zimbabwe
from Zambia”.
The Zimbabwe Investment Authority, the nation’s investment scrutiniser, said
it could be true that the commercial farmers were indeed returning to the
country.
“Zimbabwe farmers are allowed special deductions over and above the normal
deductions,” the ZIA said. “Examples include expenditure on fencing,
clearing and stamping land, sinking boreholes and wells and on aerial and
geophysical surveys.”