Zimbabwe is taking back land that was not used by Black farmers Land reforms in the early 2000s were meant to correct colonial mistakes, but wealthy people ended up getting more.
Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Minister, Anxious Masuka, says that the country has started taking back land that isn’t being used by Black farmers who got a lot of land in land reforms 20 years ago.
Those who have land that isn’t being used and those who own a lot of land will lose land, he said on Wednesday. The plots will then be given to farmers who want to start a business from a list of people who want to start a business from earlier land reform processes.
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Zimbabwe is taking back land that was not used by Black farmers
“Zimbabwe has a limited amount of land,” Masuka said. People on the waiting list are getting land that was taken from Blacks and given to Blacks. “We’ve already given away 99 percent of the land.”
The government won’t take over farms that make money, he said.
At the start of the annual tobacco auctions, Masuka said that some people had already been repossessed, but he didn’t say how many.
Ex-President Robert Mugabe started land reforms in 2000, which meant taking white farmers away from their land and giving it to people who were black.
It was supposed to make up for the damage done by British colonialism. In reality, many of Mugabe’s close allies had multiple farms.
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But many new farmers didn’t know much about farming, so a lot of land went to waste.
As a breadbasket, Zimbabwe used to be a great place to get food. Now, there are food shortages, and more than a quarter of a million farmers are waiting for land.
Mashu’s deputy told AFP that the government had also allowed some white commercial farmers to come back to some farms through joint ventures.
When he was in government, “We don’t have any rules.” “What we want is for everyone to be treated the same,” says
He said, “We need to make our country self-sufficient in food and nutrition.”
By September, some 10 million of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people could go hungry because of a bad rainy season.
For a long time, the country has relied on outside help to get basic food.
The source is AFP.