Govt to rationalise farm sizes
Government has said it will re-demarcate land allocated to farmers who are failing to attain optimum production owing to resource constraints.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mashonaland Central Provincial Governor Advocate Martin Dinha said some farms were too big for occupiers to cope with.
“This has seen some of the farmers going into illegal leases with former commercial farmers.
“We are, however, working on rationalising the allocations so that people have pieces of land they can fully use,” he said.
Mashonaland Central province recently “named and shamed” some beneficiaries of the land reform programme — including traditional and political leaders — who were leasing out their farms to white former owners.
Adv Dinha, however, dismissed reports that people leasing out farms included Media, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu and his Local Government counterpart Dr Ignatius Chombo. “For the record, there was no land audit where ministers Shamu and Chombo were discovered as offenders.
“The ministers do not have any farms in Mashonaland Central Province nor are they sub-letting any land, anywhere in Zimbabwe.
“Terms of offer letters are very clear and make it illegal for farmers to sub-let the land. Land reform was an instrument of empowering marginalised people who were under the repressive yoke of white settlers.”
Adv Dinha said the province had dispatched district assessment teams to gather information on the issue and unearthed illegal leasing.
“There is a waiting list with more than 3 000 applicants for land and we cannot have the luxury of returning land to former commercial farmers. While we are still waiting for an official land audit, we want to downsize their farms, especially for farmers who are not capable of using them.
“We believe the people who have leased out their land took more than what they could manage and the rationalisation programme will provide more land to the people.
“We want them to use available land that is commensurate with their resources and capacity,” he said.