Harare – President Emmerson Mnangagwa‘s government is reportedly offering incentives to Zimbabwean white farmers, who shifted their business to Zambia at the height of the controversial land reform programme, to relocate back to the southern African country.
Mnangagwa is breaking away from the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms carried out by his predecessor and mentor Robert Mugabe, who resigned in November under military pressure.
Thousands of white commercial farmers and their employees were displaced and left without sources of income during the fast-tracked agrarian reforms that were masterminded by Mugabe’s administration in 2000.
According to the Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe (CFU), more than 4000 white farmers were affected by the often violent farm invasions.
Some of the white farmers that were kicked out of their properties during the agrarian reforms set base in neighbouring countries such as Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.
But according to Zambia Watchdog, the new administration of Mnangagwa was now targeting these farmers and offering them incentives to return.
“The new government led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe will use the upcoming Agritech Expo Zambia to meet these farmers and entice them to return to Zimbabwe,” the report said.
The Agri Expo was expected to run from April 12 to April 14 and was organised by the African Farmers Union (ZNFU) and a firm called Spintelligent, said the report.
Other countries that had confirmed participation were the Czech Republic, European Union, Finland, France and Germany.
COMMENTS
Apart from sheer greed plus of lining his own and his friends pockets, I cannot see what this land program set out to archive. You through somebody off a working farm, this farm employs people directly, pays taxes etc, provided 3 party livelihood through supplies, services etc; then you go hungry as the farm does not actually grow anything! – so no food and no export income.
Could not this fool not see, or at least think through his actions? I fail to come to any other conclusion, than it was the ‘rob the country to extinction by the fastest means’ syndrome or he needed mental help. I Know the question of ‘Blacks’ not having land is emotive and difficult, but hell if you stave in the process……
The same intelligent theme seems to have existed re NRZ and the roads, the banking, the Police, hospital, Schools, The universities (say no more!), prisons, murder, abduction, defying the law, buying no end to military equipment you do not need. Crossing peoples backsides with nice shiny vehicles that you abandon when they need servicing. He was great at rhetoric but no good at producing the goods – all wind. Even when it was all going pear shaped big time – he still kept on with the same clapped out ideas. He now appears to disagree with the new ‘liberal’ management! His present mental bewilderment appears to be nothing new.
He is targeting the Zimbabwean farmers in Zambia because they are now growing excess and feeding Zimbabwe. In the past it was the other way round. They also have the capital to self finance.
ED it was not just the maize farmers who made Zimbabwe agriculture the best in the world there were the tobacco, horticulture (about to eclipse Kenya) citrus, beef and dairy farmers who had products in demand worldwide. That is how you fed the nation and generated the forex. It was vibrant and balanced, so to bring back maize farmers alone is not the answer.