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Minister Mombeshora

The Land Reform and Redistribution Programme has gone a long way in making land available to thousands of land hungry blacks who were denied access to the resource by colonialism.

The erstwhile white ruling class shared the best land among themselves while banishing blacks to small pieces of rocky fields unsuitable for any crop production.  Overcrowding was the order of the day in the badlands, as well as poverty.

As a result access to the land was one of the biggest grievances during the First and Second Chimurenga/Umvukela. Many blacks died fighting for it. Some were injured. Cognisant of the historical imbalance in land ownership, the Zanu-PF Government tried to settle the question soon after Independence through the willing-buyer willing-seller approach but the white land owners would not let go of the resource. As a result the delivery of land to the masses did not occur as fast as the Government and its people wanted. A land donor conference to speed up the process was held in 1998 but still no money was donated to buy land from whites.

However, this did not extinguish the people’s hunger for the land. In fact, it made them hungrier for it. Matters boiled over in 2000 when the masses, led by war veterans, occupied formerly white-owned farmland countrywide, resulting in what is now known as the fast-track land reform and redistribution programme.

At least 380 000 blacks were allocated farms and plots under the Model A1 and A2 schemes over the past 17 years. About 14 million hectares of land was redistributed.  Many of the beneficiaries of the land are utilising it, despite the prevailing economic challenges and recurrent droughts that have occurred over the past 17 years.

However, it has come to the attention of the Government that utilisation levels at other farms is too low, in some cases down to nothing. Reasons for this sad state of affairs are many. It can be because some beneficiaries emigrated, it can be because some beneficiaries are poorly resourced, and it can be that some beneficiaries are simply not good enough on the land.

For this reason, as the Minister of Lands, Rural Resettlement, Dr Douglas Mombeshora told the latest edition of our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, the Government has initiated the process of acquiring idle or underutilised farms for redistribution under the Farm Rationalisation Programme to those itching to work it for national development.

“What we are doing is part of farm rationalisation in line with Government policy to ensure maximum usage of all agriculture land in the country,” he said.

“We have been flighting notices in newspapers where we are advising offer letter holders who are not using their land that we intend to cancel those offer letters.

“What we are doing now is identifying farms and plots where land is not being utilised at all or not being used to its potential with a view to distributing it to others.

“In terms of the law, we have the option of sending letters to the offer letter holder’s given home address, their farms or publishing a notice in a national newspaper, advising them of our intention. But what we are doing across the country right now is send out teams, led by provincial lands officers, to inspect farms in order to ascertain whether they are being utilised or not.

“In cases where the farm is very large and is being underutilised, we have the option of downsizing; that is taking back part of the farm with a view of giving it to others.

“In cases where the land is not being utilised at all, we have the option of withdrawing the offer letter. This is all part of the broader Farm Rationalisation Programme, which Government is implementing as part of the finalisation of the Land Reform Programme.”

Allowing these people to continue on the land would be a betrayal of those who fought to liberate the land from white control since 1890. In addition, that would be unfair if one considers that there are as many as 500 000 applicants on the waiting list.

Seventeen years is more than enough for a capable farmer to establish themselves on the land. We therefore are happy that the Government has taken this decision and is implementing it in a systematic manner.

The Government is not just resettling people on the land for which some have offer letters. It is making efforts to communicate with the persons concerned directly, and as we have seen a few days ago, is publishing notices in the media, announcing its intention to lawfully withdraw a farmer’s title over the land.

This is very important because it limits the possibility of disputes over land, which in many cases have been bloody.