BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre |Thursday
MALAWI has purchased its first 244 hectares of land for an ambitious US$25m land resettlement programme in an attempt to avert Zimbabwe-style land invasions.
Land minister Thengo Maloya said the two lakeside estates in Malawi’s southern Mangochi district would help relieve mounting pressure for agricultural land by an estimated 21_000 landless peasants.
Maloya stressed, however, that the purchase was only a fraction of the 15_000 hectares needed to create food security for the country’s rural poor.
An estimated 1,4 million hectares of commercial-grade agricultural land currently lies fallow but the largely absentee landlords are, Maloya said, reluctant to sell or lease.
“Peasants are starving and cannot understand why they cannot farm on land that stands unused,” said Maloya. “A presidential commission pointed out the need for a formal and pro-active land reform programme. We plan to buy or expropriate the necessary land, but need roughly US$25m for the programme.”
Foreign donors have already been approached for the funding, but government is struggling to secure commitments without legislating regulations to steer the programme and protect property rights.
The presidential commission warned that only unutilised agricultural land should be targeted for resettlement and recommended that government negotiate market related values with landowners.
Maloya warned, however, that the negotiation process and linked legislative processes were slow and often frustrated hunger or poor peasants.
Roughly 60% of Malawi’s 10 million people do not currently own or enjoy guaranteed access to land.
Maloya declined to compare the situation to recent disastrous land invasions in neighbouring Zimbabwe, but acknowledged that “the land issue could easily become a breeding place for violence” if neglected.
Malawi’s most fertile land is concentrated in the tea and coffee growing areas of the south, and is still largely owned by foreign or expatriate companies and estates.
Politicians and prosperous individual Malawians own almost all the fertile alluvial land in central Malawi, where the country’s large tobacco crop is grown.
The nation’s estimated 2,5 million subsistence farmers eke out a living in the country’s drought prone northern and far western regions.
Subsistence farmers account, Maloya said, for roughly 78% of the country’s three million economically active citizens. – African Eye News Service