VP takes swipe at trophy farm owners

Mujuru, who was addressing a field day at Langana farm in Matepatepa recently, said urban households engaging in peri-urban farming were in several cases doing a lot better than the resettled farmers. When we told you to take up land from white commercial farmers we did not mean that land should be for display, she said.

Zimbabwe has battled food shortages since 2000 when President Robert Mugabe began seizing white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks, an exercise he said was necessary to correct a colonial land tenure system that reserved the best land for whites and banished blacks to poor soils.

But critics blame the chaotic and often violent reforms for destroying food security and destabilising Zimbabwes agriculture-based economy after Mugabe failed to support the resettled black villagers with inputs to maintain production.

A farmer in Matepatepa told The Zimbabwean On Sunday that it was unfair for Mujuru to blame resettled villagers for failure to produce when the government has not done anything to provide support to the poor peasants.

Zanu (PF) only gave us land but did not capacitate us with resources and finance so we cannot produce enough food to feed the nation, the farmer said.