Zanu (PF) busts EU farm inputs sanctions

The farmers are using fake names of farms owned to access in puts, as the EU indicated that recently resettled farmers with land ownership being contested in the courts of law are not eligible for the assistance. The EU project is aimed at securing food security in the country.

“Since most of our members have ownership of their farms being challenged before the courts of law, they have failed to qualify for the EU assistance. We regard the EU beneficiary assessment criteria as politically motivated and have devised ways of busting the sanctions on behalf of our members. We are using names of pieces of land owned by villagers resettled in the early 1980s, for our discriminated farmers to benefit from the inputs program,” said a Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) official at the Mashonaland East 2009 Agricultural Show last Saturday.

The official said they had approached their counterparts in Harare, to assist with haste approval of application forms without much verification of details.

“Out of the 12 600 tones of fertilizer applied for by our members, the EU only approved 3 000 tones for the whole country. This has spelt doom for members who benefited from the recent agrarian reform program. We are now in the process of preparing other application forms with misleading information to out manoeuvre the EU. We have even arranged with genuine beneficiaries to apply for inputs exceeding their requirements, so that they can share with those labelled as land grabbers. The EU can not beat our creativeness,” said the ZCFU official who did not realize he was talking to a journalist.

The official said under the EU scheme, a 50kg pocket of fertilizer was selling for US$15. The price is less than half of what retailers are charging. Communal farmers and people with undisputed land are legitimate beneficiaries of the project.