eized from white commercial farmers have failed to reap meaningful harvests for the past six seasons.
According to the Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet), this year’s harvest is expected to meet on only 30 to 50 percent of national food requirements and government has already declared 2007 a drought year.
Matabeleland South governor, Angeline Masuku, currently battling a High Court lawsuit from new farmers at Esigodini who were evicted from their plots to make way for a white farmer, said lazy new farmers were denying the country of food and foreign currency.
“We will take away farms that are lying idle or being underutilized by lazy farmers because such farmers are sabotaging the economy,” Masuku said. “If you are not utilising the land we will take it to farmers for whom producing for their families and the nation is vital.
She was speaking at a field day held recently at her Wollendale Farm in Matabeleland South. The government has denied persistent reports that it is planning to bring back white commercial farmers, to arrest the declining production in the agriculture sector. – CAJ News
14.6.2007
0:00
Masuku threatens lazy farmers
BULAWAYO
The Zimbabwe government has repeated threats that beneficiaries of its controversial land reform programme will be evicted if they continue underperforming.
Most resettled farmers allocated land under the fast track land resettlement programme, who were given productive farmland s