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'Zim black farmers to blame'
01/11/2005 14:50 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe launched its strongest criticism of black farmers who benefited from its controversial land reforms, saying their apathy was responsible for a serious food crisis.
"We have a few people that are really committed to production while many others are doing nothing on the farms," deputy minister for Agriculture, Sylvester Nguni was quoted as saying by the state-owned Herald newspaper.
"The problem is that we gave land to people lacking the passion for farming and this is why every year production has been declining."
He said although an ongoing drought had contributed to reduced yields, "the biggest letdown has been that people without the slightest idea of farming got land and the result has been declining agricultural output."
Nguni's remarks at a congress of the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union came on the heels of warnings by the country's two vice-presidents that the government would reclaim under-utilised farms.
"We will not hesitate to reclaim all the under-utilised farms and allocate (them) to other farmers," Vice President Joseph Msika was quoted as saying two weeks ago.
"We do not want people who simply build homes at their new farms without using the land for productive purposes and we want people to work the land to avoid chronic food shortages."
Zimbabwe's land reforms, which began, often violently, in 2000 after the rejection in a referendum of a government-sponsored draft constitution, have seen some 4 000 white farmers lose their properties.
Seized land has been distributed to landless blacks in a move that the government has said is designed to correct imbalances created by colonial rule, when the majority of prime farmland was owned by some 4 500 whites.
But critics of the land reforms say most beneficiaries lack farming knowledge and depend on government handouts while others were sitting on fallow land.
International aid agencies estimate that some 4.3 million people out of Zimbabwe's population of 13 million require food assistance.
Last month co-vice president Joyce Mujuru labelled new farmers who were under-utilising the land "saboteurs" and "perennial beggars."
Central bank chief Gideon Gono last week hit out at new farmers keeping farmland purely for its own sake and turning once productive farms into "weekend picnic venues" while the country is reeling under acute food shortages.
"We are not blind to the fact that it was not land for the sake of having it and merely looking at it that mattered to our liberators. It was not about having vast pieces of land and using them as braai (barbecue) spots and weekend picnic venues," Gono said.
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