admin
Kamangeni Phiri Midlands Bureau Chief
THE Government is working on modalities to ensure that all resettlement farmers are issued with offer letters by the end of next month, the Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement, Dr Douglas Mombeshora, said yesterday. Speaking at a stakeholders meeting that included resettled farmers in Gweru, Dr Mombeshora said the Government would also act to stop fresh farm occupations.
Dr Mombeshora and his team from head office are on a tour of provinces meant to acquaint themselves with challenges in the land reform programme as a follow-up to the Zanu-PF election manifesto:Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment.
“I want the Chief Lands Officer to make sure that all the families that moved into the farms long back get offer letters first. This should be done by end of November. The officers should clear offer-letter backlogs and disputes to allow farmers to shift focus to production,” said Dr Mombeshora.
He said land officers should avoid giving offer letters to individuals who intend to move into already occupied farms.
The Minister told the meeting that all land beneficiaries should have passed through the Lands Committee to ensure transparency and fairness.
“We want to end corruption in the allocation of land. We have situations where individuals in the land committees allocate farms to relatives, friends and at times to strangers for a fee. They charge beasts in certain cases. As your Minister responsible for Lands, I won’t hesitate to get you arrested if you engage in such corrupt deals,” said Dr Mombeshora.
He said fresh farm occupations should stop forthwith to allow agriculture to drive the economy.
Dr Mombeshora said the Government would not be repossessing farms occupied by indigenous farmers perceived to be under-utilising land for as long as sanctions remained in place.
“Sanctions cripple farmers. Britain rewarded its soldiers after the World War and gave them land here in Zimbabwe when we were still its colony.
“Most of these soldiers were ex-convicts and they did not know how to farm, they learnt to do so over the years. Those who say our farmers cannot be good farmers are from opposition politics,” said Dr Mombeshora.
“As Zanu-PF Government, we believe we should empower farmers in the same manner the British and the Ian Smith governments supported their farmers.”
The Minister ordered Provincial Land Committees to reduce the size of dairy farms and create more land for resettling landless families.
Dr Mombeshora said the land redistribution and resettlement programmes were an ongoing process.
“The size of dairy farms need to be reduced.It is a myth that dairy farming can only successfully take place on big pieces of land. I hear there are some farmers with farms as big as 2 000 hectares. Such farms should be sub-divided to create land for landless families. In Italy dairy farming is done at farms that are five hectares in size with the dairy farmer producing dairy products like yoghurt, cheese and milk on that plot,” he said.
“What our farmers need to know is that there is stock feed that is given to cows other than grass.
“Dairy farms and conservancies should be run as businesses. People should not be allowed to own a farm and a conservancy at the same time. They should choose what they prefer. We will be coming up with a data base that will help us capture what’s happening on farms and end multiple farm ownership.”
Dr Mombeshora said District Administrators should not unilaterally allocate land.
“It’s not their duty. We also need to carry out land audits but these will be different from the ones demanded by the inclusive Government.
Land audit should be on production on farms not to chase people from farms,” he said.
Midlands’ Minister of State for Provincial Affairs Cde Jason Machaya appealed to Dr Mombeshora during the briefing, to help the province unlock more land for its people.
He said the Midlands ran out of land for resettlement giving rise to fresh farm occupations that resurfaced towards the 31 July harmonised elections.
“Farm occupations have intensified. Government should intervene quickly. There should also be clear policies on farm sizes and we should move towards having uniform size for the plots.
“There are other A2 farmers who have very big farms. These also need to be sub-divided further to allow more people to be resettled. In the Midlands we have covered every hectare and we don’t have any more land to resettle people,” he said.
Online Reporter