via Order must be restored on farms 16 July 2014
It is disheartening that there is still so much chaos on the farms nearly 15 years after the land reform programme was launched.
Recent reports show that members of the ruling Zanu PF party are still fighting over what remains of commercial farms after almost all farm ownership was transferred from white to black farmers.
It is also interesting to note that in many instances senior politicians are fighting to grab land from black farmers who were allocated the land and have offer letters to prove it.
The rationale behind the land reform programme was that a colonial injustice where a few white farmers owned most of the fertile land while the majority blacks had no such land or lived on arid land was corrected.
That this imbalance had to be corrected is now beyond dispute and it is irreversible.
A decade and a half down the line Zimbabweans must have realised that the land now in their hands is a resource that can be used to turn around this country’s fortunes.
Many countries the world over have used commercial agriculture as the backbone of their economies. Zimbabwe itself, until the land reform programme, also based its economy on agriculture.
It is sad that our land in mostly in the hands of new farmers who are failing to use it productively. It is also sad that senior politicians are now flexing their muscles against weaker members of society by elbowing them out of the farms they got and using them reasonably well.
It is public knowledge that these senior politicians are multiple farm owners. It is also public knowledge that they have plundered the farms they acquired and are now on the prowl for other farms to desecrate in their unquenchable thirst for the low-hanging fruit.
There are also unnecessary new invasions of land set aside for other purposes than farming by undisciplined Zanu PF brigands. A recent example is the invasion of Mazwi Game Reserve outside Bulawayo and forestry estates especially in the Eastern Highlands.
Around major cities senior politicians are also trying to take over farms that have been allocated to co-operatives for home development. They have seen the opportunities these pieces of land present and due to their greed, would like to take over.
It is therefore necessary to acknowledge efforts by forward-thinking politicians to stop these maleficent farm invasions.
Zanu PF provincial chairperson for Bulawayo Callistus Ndlovu has distanced the party from the new land invasions declaring that his party was not engaged in any new land acquisition projects. The police should now move in to evict the invaders.
Lands minister Douglas Mombeshora too must be applauded for coming out clearly and firmly that order has to be restored on the farms. He has vowed that government would deal sternly with the lawlessness prevalent in the agricultural sector so as to improve productivity.
Land is an important resource that has to be used productively to contribute to the country’s economy.
It should not be held simply for its sentimental value.
It is, therefore, important that those holding the land, but leaving it fallow, have to be quickly kicked off and replaced by those willing and able to use it productively regardless of race.
COMMENTS
This is what happens when you arbitrarily grab farms from people with years of experience and modern farming equipment & give it to people that can barely farm just for subsistence. If this was truly done in the spirit of addressing the colonial wrongs, it could have been handled much better; no training, allocation based on party loyalty, no plan to preserve infrastructure, no regard for the environment, etc.
You have the land now eat it
Read the letter by Sir Richard Branson regarding the land grab in South Africa. Tells it like it is. Brilliant.
What happened to the 44 mil pounds the British gave the government just after 1980 for land redistribution !!!! Scwanded and put back into there English bank accounts !!
Sorry but it angers me when articles like this trying to justify the theft of farms because the owners were white and call it adjustment of colonial imbalances in a corruption of history and a lie. The farms were taken to teach the farmers a lesson for supporting the opposition during the referendum. Taking land from people that had recently bought the farms has nothing to do with colonial imbalances. Zimbabwe has a lot of land, more than enough to go around. Areas are called farms yes because it is in an area that is productive but also because the person has cultivated the land, has worked hard to make it an environment. These people took farms because they though it was an on going concern and they would not need to pout in the effort. Something for nothing. This is the sickness of Zimbabwe and Africa and why Africa is a sick continent. Something for nothing does not work.
There is no justification for the so called land grab. It was blatant theft by ZPF and the theft is still going on with a bigger chef trying to steal ( under some perceived laws ) what they like.
Return the land to its legal title holders and give Zimbabwe back to the people, it is not ZPF’s.
Mugabe said he will retire when he is done with land reform programme. He is still in charge so the chaos on the land is going on. So l don’t which one will stop first