The Zimbabwe government this week ordered 15 of the few white farmers remaining in the country to vacate their properties, despite announcing earlier this month that it was in fact calling back expelled farmers to help resuscitate the collapsed agricultural sector.
The largely white-representative Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) said the government — whose land-reform programme is well-known for chaos, violence and policy flip-flops — had in fact stepped up displacement of farmers, with the latest eviction notices bringing to about 80 the number of farmers ordered to leave in the past five months.
Between 400 and 600 white farmers remain on land out of the about 4 000 who were farming in Zimbabwe before the controversial land-redistribution exercise began seven years ago.
CFU spokesperson Emily Crookes told ZimOnline: ”There has been an increase in the issuing of eviction notices and the majority are in Chiredzi (sugarcane-growing region in south-eastern Zimbabwe).”
The eviction notices issued to farmers this week are dated December 20 2006 and recipients are ordered to surrender their properties ”within 45 days from the 20th of December”.
Under the government’s land-seizure laws, once the government formally notifies a farmer of its intention to acquire the land he/she immediately loses all rights to that property, which automatically becomes state land.
But the government’s latest move to grab more land from white farmers comes barely two weeks after Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa published a notice in state-owned newspapers saying his department would offer land to ”former [white] farm owners who are genuine farmers who desire to continue farming in this country”.
The government, which at one time vowed never to return land it seized from whites, last November also gave land to about half a dozen white people, who were part of a group of about 100 black farmers who were given 99-year farm leases by the state.
Mutasa, who is also Minister of State Security, was not immediately available to take questions on the matter.
Zimbabwe, also grappling with its worst-ever economic crisis, has since 2000 relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies, mainly due to failure by new black farmers to maintain production on former white farms.
Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also had far-reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands have lost jobs while the manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is operating below 30% capacity. — ZimOnline