By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has launched a new land administration policy that permits landed property owners to transfer ownership and use the land as collateral to receive loans from financial institutions.
Recall that before a land policy initiated by the former President of the African country, Robert Mugabe, who died in 2019, land ownership was only domiciled in the hands of whites.
After the policy, land taken from the colonialists was given to Zimbabwean citizens but could not be sold or used to borrow money from banks as collateral.
Resettled farmers were also not allowed to transfer ownership of land because it was seen as an asset of the state.
The new policy, however, initiated on Friday by President Mnangagwa, is seen as a major shift in Zimbabwe’s land policy.
Under the new policy, ownership of the land can be transferred but only between “Indigenous Zimbabweans,” a reference to Black Zimbabweans. It will also require government approval.
On Friday, a handful of farmers, including Mnangagwa, received title deeds to the farms they are occupying.
Mnangagwa also announced a technical committee to spearhead the process for other resettled Black farmers.
Speaking at an event held at his farm near Kwekwe city in central Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa said the policy would help “unlock the value” of the land and make it “bankable and transferable.”
About 4,500 white farmers, who owned the majority of prime farmland, were forced out from their farms by mobs led by veterans of the country’s 1970s independence war.
Some farmers and their workers died or were seriously injured in the violence, which included beatings and rape, according to Human Rights Watch.
The land seizures seriously affected commercial farming, forcing a country that was a key regional food producer and exporter to rely on assistance from donors.
Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector has rebounded in recent years, but droughts are now the main challenge.
Securing finance has been another problem that Mnangagwa hopes could be solved by the new policy of issuing title deeds to Black farmers.
Secure land tenure means “our farmers can access credit facilities” and it “lifts many out of poverty into prosperity,” Mnangagwa said.
