CONTINUED FARM DISRUPTIONS
Agriculture was once the backbone of the economy of Zimbabwe and this was encouraged and reinforced by President Mugabe at Independence in 1980 by his courageous policy of reconciliation. Thereafter Zimbabwean commercial agriculture went through its greatest ever period of tremendous growth and development – which was all paid for by the owners of the properties themselves who had confidence to develop their investments through the security of property rights.
However, in 2000 the farmers were suddenly viciously attacked as an alleged political reprisal over the result of the Constitutional referendum and loss of support of the then ruling party in the General Election that followed.
The result of that was that thousands of farmers and hundreds of thousands of farm workers and their families faced government sponsored violence which resulted in their violent evictions from their homes, investments and places of work.
Although the majority of the investments now lay abandoned and destroyed, as well as unproductive (and unpaid for) there are some often expressed views and perceptions out on the streets that are:
Firstly, the ‘fast-track’ acquisition of commercial farms that started in February 2000 has long ago been completed and that farming continues as per normal.
The Commercial Farmers’ Union has kept comprehensive records, which are regularly updated, of all the incidents which occur on the farms which disrupt farming activities and which show that the disruptions, work stoppages, harassment, intimidation, looting, punitive prosecutions and violent evictions have continued relentlessly since 2000.
For example the number of farm disruptions and the intimidating court appearances recorded by farmers numbered 221 incidents in January 2010, 198 incidents in February 2010, 172 in March 2010, 142 in April 2010 and 215 in May 2010.
It should be noted that these are only the numbers of incidents which have been reported to us. Many farmers often feel too intimidated or embarrassed to report all the ongoing incidents.
What we are finding is that the attacks are generally linked to either political patronage or political events, which can be clearly shown in graph tables of the incidents.
For example, following the party congress in December 2009 there was an upsurge of farmers being evicted in the Makoni district of Manicaland. This was put down to an alleged internal dispute at the congress which resulted in orders being given at a meeting held later in the district, allegedly by Minister Mutasa, to remove the remaining white farmers from their farms in the area.
The result of this was several of his well-known henchmen removing or attempting to remove 5 productive farmers from their properties.
As we normally find the police are still very reluctant to get involved, terming the incidents occurring on white owned farms as “political”. Apparently the police still only deal with reports which they classify as “criminal”. Such decisions are allegedly made at JOC meetings held at provincial level.
We can only comment that all the incidents which occurred were definitely criminal and that there should be absolutely no such distinction especially when it affects people’s lives, employment and vital food or export production, during the obligatory maintenance of law and order by the police.
The second perception is that commercial farmers are being prosecuted for preventing or obstructing the beneficiaries from occupying their homes, or farming.
The perception that farmers are ‘criminals’ because they are still farming is indeed a matter of an opinion on ethics, human rights obligations in terms of our national Constitution and the facts which should speak for themselves. It needs to be taken completely out of the political domain.
The main perception, which has probably instigated such accusations of criminality, come from the misconceptions about the true meaning of an ‘offer letter’, which in itself is an extremely loose document which offers absolutely no powers or security at all.
Unfortunately many consider the offer letter as a fully fledged lease, which automatically gives the recipient the right to immediately take over the property, home, crop and equipment in its entirety.
From a legal point of view the offer letter is as it says – an offer letter given in advance of the promised issuance of a secure lease or other secure forms of ownership.
Ownership of a property through an offer letter is extremely difficult at this stage because not only can occupation only occur when there is ‘vacant possession’ of the property but there has technically been no legal transfer of either the property itself or the development thereon, and most certainly no legal transfer of movable assets, or personal property, or any payment thereof.
In the background to this it should be borne in mind that the majority of the legislation and subsequent Constitutional amendments which were brought about to assist the acquisition of property through the ‘fast-track programme’ were passed when there was no effective opposition in Parliament.
Furthermore, many of the legislation and Constitutional amendments were done so illegally as they severely offended, or were ultra vires of the Constitution, and which will hopefully be rectified through a democratic Parliament at some future date.
Farmers have also been accused of defying eviction orders to vacate their properties, but the truth of the matter is that only a competent court may lawfully issue an order for the eviction of a person and only once the legal process has been utterly exhausted.
Whilst we do admit that the Ministry of Lands have issued some farmers with Eviction Notices they must not be confused with Eviction Orders, which the ministry has no powers to issue.
Currently there are some 200 farmers being prosecuted in the courts under the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act which was promulgated with the powers to sentence and evict farmers from their properties.
However, in February 2009 written instructions by the Chief Magistrate were sent out to all magistrates, prosecutors, police, army, Lands, Local Government and AREX in an attempt to persuade alleged prejudgment and fast tracking of cases against farmers.
Workshops were held in all the provinces where the instructions were allegedly delivered by the Attorney-General. This was in contravention of the Separation of Powers as defined in the Constitution.
So far only 23 farmers have been evicted by the courts and 20 have appealed.
However, there is huge dissatisfaction that farmers are being denied the right of their protection of the law.
We wish to reassure the general public that the Commercial Farmers’ Union does support genuine and transparent land reform and have always thrown its weight behind sharing its members’ knowledge and experience with new, and old farmers, on uncontested land.
Thirdly, it is often reported that the lack of productivity in the commercial farming sector has been caused by a prolonged drought since 2000 as well as the lack of the necessary farming inputs and finance.
Evidence is available from the Meteorological Office to confirm that over the last 10 years the country has experienced average, and in many years, above average rainfall in most of the crop producing districts in the country.
During this time there were even two bumper harvests of maize produced in the traditionally drought prone agro-ecological region V.
Statistics which are available clearly show that large scale commercial farmers have traditionally produced the majority of the strategic food reserves and export crops.
Whilst we do recognise that collectively small-scale farmers in communal areas do grow huge quantities of the staple maize crop, but much of this does not find its way into the strategic reserve due to logistical problems.
Also much of the food is consumed locally on a subsistence basis. The lack of security of the offer letter itself is one of the main reasons for lack of productivity on acquired properties. Why should beneficiaries spend huge amounts of money on infrastructural development or production costs when the offer letter itself states that they could be removed with only a few days notice with no compensation to be paid?
Commercial banks only lend out their depositor’s money and it is a normal international banking standard legal requirements and practice that they are only allowed to lend out their depositor’s money to borrowers with a good track record and secure collateral.
They are certainly not a donor agency and they do require that their funds be guaranteed and that they be returned with government regulated and specified interest.
These banking rules do not only apply to new or small-scale farmers but also to large scale commercial farmers, who under the current situation are also unable to qualify for loans using their farms as collateral.
Previously, the super-hyperinflation and extremely high interest rates have also been very unattractive and unfavourable to both the lender and borrower.
With regards to the shortage of inputs the fertiliser manufacturing companies, for example, have been battling to operate under very inhibitive and crippling circumstances.
Initially the strict price controls starved them of investment capital which they would normally utilise to replace their aged processing plants.
Following that the ZESA shortages as well as shortages of foreign currency to import the main ingredients simply compounded the issue. This was followed by the downturn in business caused by the loss of the bulk of their normal customers in commercial agriculture sector, which was caused by the fast-track land acquisition programme.
To conclude perhaps the general public should understand that any highly productive commercial farm is built up over a number of years with the majority of the profits being ‘ploughed’ back into the land in the form of capital improvements and development e.g. workers accommodation, schools, dams, roads, irrigation schemes, barns, sheds, tractors, implements, etc.
This development has taken place over many generations, whether it be through inheritance of members of the same family or by successive investors on the same property. The destruction of this meticulous farming infrastructure and development, which started over ten years ago has definitely not abated.
This massive looting exercise is continuing as we speak, in an exercise which has been far more destructive than what happened during the war of liberation or Cyclone Eline – or even a combination of them both.
Surely the time has come for all of us Zimbabweans to gather round together and put our differences aside to persuade the powers that be to put an abrupt stop to the destruction and violence and to once again recognise property rights and the rule of law so that the country can once again move forward with confidence and pride.
Lastly, it is essential that full and fair compensation is promptly paid for the acquired and damaged properties in order to remove the conflict in ownership of land which would allow Zimbabwe to progress to become a highly productive and leading agricultural nation once again.
The legacy of destruction and violence needs to be swiftly put behind us, once and for all.
It should be noted that this document has been written without the use of complex, or confusing legal language or arguments to enable the general public to have a better understanding of the ongoing situation. However, most of the case law and laws themselves may be found on the Commercial Farmer’s Union’s website www.cfuzim.org should the reader wish to research further into the controversial subject.