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The Zimbabwe Land Commission (ZLC) launched a national farm audit yesterday, an investigation that is scheduled to end on November 24.

Eight districts — Hurungwe in Mashonaland West Province, Wedza in Mashonaland East, Muzarabani in Mashonaland Central, Kwekwe in Midlands, Makoni in Manicaland, Gutu in Masvingo, Kusile in Matabeleland North and Beitbridge in Matabeleland South —will be covered in the initial phase before the process spreads to other districts in the eight rural provinces.

Among other objectives, the audit is meant to get an idea of land utilisation patterns and optimal farming activities which will influence appropriate policies for increased agricultural productivity, poverty alleviation and sustainable utilisation of agricultural land, said ZLC chairperson Commissioner Tendai Bare.

The audit will be carried out in all gazetted categories of agricultural land which include old resettlement schemes, A1 villages, A1 self-contained, A2 small-medium and large-scale commercial farms, small-scale commercial farms, commercial agricultural plots and the three-tier farms.

“We will also identify the challenges and constraints being faced by the farmers in successfully addressing the agrarian reform agenda,” she said.

“We will also identify land utilisation patterns and optimal farming activities which influence appropriate policies for increased agricultural production, poverty alleviation and sustainable use of agricultural land. We expect farmers to be ready to receive the audit teams and to provide the necessary information. A farmer should just produce identity particulars, marriage certificates, tenure documents, production records and development plans. Where there are disputes, farmers should also indicate to the teams. This is not a witch-hunting exercise and we expect farmers to co-operate.”

Zimbabweans have been waiting for this essential investigation for a long time. They are keen to understand the extent to which farms are being utilised, the challenges that farmers are facing and the impact of those challenges on production.

There have been reports since the fast track land reform and redistribution programme was launched 18 years ago that some influential figures helped themselves to more than one farm and because they have too much land to themselves aren’t fully utilising it. Zimbabweans want these people named, shamed, their undeserved land repossessed and reallocated to others who need farms but have been crowded out by the land grabbers.

The land is a national resource and all of us have an interest in it. We are an agro-based economy thus anything to do with agriculture is at the hearts and minds of the majority of our people. The fact that all agricultural land in our country is state land makes the public interest in the utilisation of the resource greater.

Since the ongoing audit is of much public interest, we encourage farmers to co-operate fully with the enumerators who will knock on their doors for the inspection and data collection mission. They must be free to give the officials all the relevant information about the land they are on. They must be open about disputes that might be there on the farms. They must be honest if they are sitting on more than one farm for, even if they continue giving inaccurate information, authorities will still get the correct picture in the end.

There is no doubt that many of our new farmers have not sufficiently dominated the land they are on. They are still struggling, only working small fractions of their farms, realising small harvests. We know that others are leasing the land having failed to fully utilise it alone. Reasons for this are many, but chief among them is lack of resources.

We also know that there is conflict over farm boundaries in many parts of the country.

All these challenges and more can only be accurately known, thus adequately addressed if the Government has the correct information obtained from the ground. Our farmers will assist the Government and assist themselves actually if they co-operate with officials conducting the audit.

We expect the investigation to yield a trove of vital information useful in informing Government policy and farmers’ operations. Like any probe, we expect Commissioner Bare and her team to proffer a number of recommendations on the way forward.

Among the recommendations could be repossession of excess land from multiple farm owners, downsizing of farms that will be found to be too large for certain agro-ecological regions as well as expansion of some to be found to be too small for certain regions. The commission might recommend more training for farmers to enhance production and yields.

Speaking ahead of time, we expect the Government to implement the recommendations to be given by the audit, even tough ones that might be unpopular in some circles yet are of public interest and important in the long run for national development.