By John Ikani
Zimbabwe has begun redistributing unused land that was given to black farmers during President Robert Mugabe’s bloody land reforms in the early 2000s.
Announcing the move on Wednesday, Zimbabwean Agriculture minister, Anxious Masuka said people whose farmland is lying unused and those who own multiple farms will lose land.
According to him: “The lands will be redistributed to aspiring farmers, who are on a waiting list established since the last reforms.
“99% of the land has already been allocated, and the land distributed to farmers on the waiting list is being taken from blacks, to be allocated to blacks.”
He added the government would not repossess productive farms.
Former president Robert Mugabe launched land reforms in 2000, forcibly removing white farmers and giving their land to blacks.
The scheme was supposed to redress legacies of British colonialism but in practise, many of Mugabe’s close allies ended up with multiple farms.
But many new farmers had little knowledge, training or support, and vast swathes of land became derelict.
Once renowned as a breadbasket, Zimbabwe now suffers from chronic food shortages, while a quarter of a million farmers are on the waiting list for land.
After the fall of Robert Mugabe in 2017, his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa promised to heal the wounds of the land reforms and even to compensate expropriated farmers.
Some white farmers have already been allowed to reclaim land through local partnerships, Masuka said. “There are no specific criteria,” Vangelis Haritatos, deputy agriculture minister, told AFP. “What we want is a system that is fair to the greatest number of people.”
“We want to achieve food self-sufficiency,” Haritatos said. According to the Famine Early Warning Network, about 10 million Zimbabweans, or two-thirds of the population, are at risk of hunger after a disappointing rainy season. Zimbabwe is heavily dependent on donors for its food supplies.
