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Govt in fresh farm seizures
Kumbirai Mafunda, The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
October 19, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=1777

MORE than 100 white farmers have been forced to cancel their harvesting and cropping plans just before the start of the summer planting season, as government presses ahead with fresh farm seizures.

The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) reported this week that its members were being served with eviction notices barring them from working their fields.

Against the background of a government undertaking to halt land seizures, which have decimated agricultural production, government supporters have reportedly intensified farm invasions, ordering all production to cease even if crops are ready to be harvested and appeals against the evictions are pending. Failure to comply with an eviction order attracts a sentence of up to two years in prison.

The Mashonaland West and East, Manicaland, Midlands and Masvingo farming regions are reported to be the worst affected by the fresh wave of farm disturbances.

In Manicaland, the CFU reported that some ZANU PF gangs had seized avocado, macadamia, coffee and timber plantations, while some farmers lost sugarcane plantations in Chiredzi.

In Banket and Karoi, tobacco farmers said they were being served with eviction notices signed by State Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement Minister Didymus Mutasa at a stage when they should be transplanting seedlings.

CFU chief executive officer Hendrik Olivier told The Financial Gazette that the situation was so bad that some farmers were evicted as they prepared to harvest their winter wheat crop.

"The disruption is ongoing and we are very disturbed. All of a sudden there is an upsurge in evictions when farmers have already secured finance and inputs," said Olivier.

He estimated that between 3 000 and 5 000 jobs could have been lost as a result of the latest wave of evictions.
"Labour is unsettled as their only source of employment is being taken away," Olivier said.

Mutasa vowed to press ahead with the evictions.

"We are taking over our farms. Who said land reform yakapera (is over). We have just taken a little part of the land," said Mutasa.

However Mutasa's comments appeared to be inconsistent with Vice President Joice Mujuru's speech last week when she reassured more than 300 international guests attending the tourism expo that "Our land reform programme is now part of our history. I am happy to say that the issue has now been taken to its logical conclusion."

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Gideon Gono says the decline in food production is militating against efforts to slay inflation, which at 1 023,3 percent is the highest in the world.

Critics warn that the radical parcelling out of productive pieces of land to unproductive farmers under the pretext of redressing colonial injustices could drastically reduce next year's harvest.

Already, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has indicated that 1,4 million Zimbabweans will need food aid until next year's harvest to avert massive starvation.

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