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THE land reform and redistribution programme has been a success in a number of ways.

The biggest success is the fact that the land, grabbed from indigenous people over 90 years of colonial misrule, was repossessed and redistributed to about 20 000 A2 farmers and 170 000 A1 farmers.  That is widely held as the biggest land reclamation exercise by indigenous people in any country worldwide.

The other success is the exponential growth in food production the country has seen in recent years.  Because we have more hands working the land, instead of the 4 500 white commercial farmers who held most of the country’s fertile soils before land reform, we are able to harvest much more than before. For example, tobacco output rose to a record of 262 million kilogrammes in 2019. We had not harvested anything close to that since commercial tobacco growing started in the country in the late 1890s.

In addition to the outstanding tobacco performance, the country reaped more than two million tonnes of maize this year, the highest output in 25 years.

Also the land reform and redistribution exercise has been a success in the way it has mobilised the people on the importance of the resource. Many more of us now take farming as a viable career path and many more of us are making big money out of it.  Before 2000, we thought the fashionable among us were the formally employed in urban areas; everyone else was rural and unfashionable. Now, thanks to the land reforms, one can be fashionable on the land as in that formal job.

However, the agriculture sector has not exhausted the potential it has.

We have not exhausted it because a few beneficiaries of the land reform exercise still think land ownership ends there with no meaningful work on that land. They just drive to the properties from cities over weekends to drink and braai in forests that must be productive farms, taking selfies for posting on social media.

Some of those who are doing something on the farms are only utilising small portions of the land, with the rest fallow. And because they aren’t doing much on the land, these people have not built any notable structures and employ only general hands with zero commercial farming knowledge.

The time for such people is up, the Government has said.

Addressing senior lands officers from across the country attending a workshop on land management and distribution in Gweru on Monday, the acting lands development director in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement Mr Cephas Magauze said:

“The permit holder must take up permanent residence within 30 days, the permit holder must appoint a manager to take up permanent residence in three months. The permit holder must undertake to initiate development in accordance with the five-year development plan. So, there are rules of engagement of which if they are breached, the farm will be forfeited by the State.”

Yes, the indigenous people repossessed their land and are proud of that feat, but the Government is now pushing them to run their farms as serious businesses.

We argue that it is very fair that if they cannot run them commercially; if they cannot invest in permanent structures; if they cannot take up full time residence on the farms or at least employ a qualified farm manager, there is no reason why those pieces of land must be registered in their name. The land has to be repossessed and reallocated to someone else who has the financial muscle and willingness to work it more productively.

The Government will now insist on the execution of on-farm development in accordance with five-year plans that farmers are bound to craft. Furthermore, each farmer must produce and submit an annual production plan to the ministry by February 15 of each year.

By insisting on time-bound drafting, submission and execution of production plans, the Government is pressuring farmers to be more hands-on and work harder on their land for their benefit at personal level and that of the economy.

It will be critical, going forward, for Government officials to be on the ground more often, physically visiting farms to assess production levels and see if indeed, farmers or their managers reside on the properties.

These few elements as outlined by Mr Magauze, taken together with the facilities that the Government has been providing for growers since the beginning of the land reform and redistribution exercise in 2000, should ensure that the land is used more productively.