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White farmers need leases
29/04/2006 13:08 - (SA)
Harare - White commercial farmers who want to continue farming in Zimbabwe must apply for leases on their land, a government minister was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Flora Buka, the Minister of State for Special Affairs Responsible for Land, Land Reform and Resettlement said white farmers had to apply for "offer letters" - official permission from the government to farm - "as any other people are required to do so."
Buka said 500 white farmers had applied for permission so far.
There's been confusion in recent weeks over unconfirmed reports Zimbabwe had invited white farmers chased from their farms back to the land.
Government ministers have denied this is a dramatic U-turn in Zimbabwe's land reform programme, which has seen up to 4 000 commercial farmers lose their farms in the past six years.
Buka said "remaining farmers" had to apply for leases to farm, following changes to Zimbabwe's constitution that make all agricultural land required for resettlement state land.
"The need to apply for land is open to every Zimbabwean, including white commercial farmers," she told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Apply for resettlement
"About 500 of the remaining 927 white commercial farmers have applied and their applications are being considered," she said. The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) last week put the figure at only around 200.
"The reminder for the white commercial farmers to apply for resettlement is an indication by government that the land reform programme is open to all citizens of Zimbabwe, irrespective of race. Black or white farmers are all requested to apply," Buka said.
President Robert Mugabe launched the land reform programme in early 2000 in what he said was a bid to correct colonial-era imbalances in land ownership.
But the programme has been mired in controversy following allegations ruling party officials had seized most of the best farms, while agricultural production has plummeted.
Meanwhile, in central Midlands province, at least six white farmers have been told to leave their farms in the past two weeks, an official from farming pressure group Justice for Agriculture (JAG) said. Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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