APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) As many as 900 white commercial farmers have returned to farm the land as beneficiaries of Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme move to transform their fortunes following years of trying to keep up with the rigours of running success agricultural concerns, according to reports monitored here on Wednesday.
Thousands of white farmers were forced from their land without compensation as part of a land reform programme that started in 2000 and was described by former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe as a necessary move to redress colonial-era land grabs.
Out of more than 4,500 white-owned farms in 2000, only around 300 farmers remained on portions of their original land at the height of the land reform programme around 2010.
However, according to the reports on Wednesday, white farmers have been trickling back to Zimbabwe at the invitation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
There are now believed to be as many as 900 white-run commercial farms, with most of the farmers not working their own land, but renting in joint ventures from black farmers given confiscated white-owned land.
“Agriculture is taking off in Zimbabwe again and it’s because the government has realised you need the best people on the land, regardless of what colour they are,” one of the white farmers is quoted as saying.
The majority of beneficiaries of the land reform programme failed to manage the farms and in recent years turned to white former farmers to whom they rented parts of their land.
Others partners the former white commercial farmers in joint ventures where the latter have responsibility for running the farmers.
JN/APA