The CFU said its 2010 congress will take place on August 2 and 3 in the capital and on the agenda will be the unions response to on-going farm violence and a recovery plan for the beleaguered agricultural sector. Highlights will include reports on the plight of South African nationals driven off their farms by Zanu (PF) supporters and the CFUs compensation and recovery programme for the sector.
Zimbabwes white farmers have submitted an ambitious agricultural recovery plan to government that proposes converting into interest-bearing bonds the amount owed by Harare to farmers for farms expropriated during President Robert Mugabes controversial decade-long land reform programme.
The proposal, which was developed over the past eight months, is based on a cost-recovery model that would allow the cash-strapped Zimbabwe government to gradually pay off affected white farmers for land acquired while also reviving the countrys battered agriculture sector. Central to the success of the proposal would be an agreement between government and the farmers on the total value of land and investments on farms acquired since the redistribution exercise began in 2000. The white farmers last year put a US$5 billion price tag on farms and assets grabbed by the government.
The broke Harare regime has however refused to compensate the farmers for the land, insisting that the white farmers must seek compensation from the British government, which it accused of reneging on a 1979 promise to fund Zimbabwes resettlement programme. The CFU is also working on various proposals to improve the welfare of South African citizens whose farms were expropriated by the Harare authorities. More than 200 South Africans have lost their farms in Zimbabwe since 2000.
Post published in: News