White farmers offered generous leases to come back

White farmers in Zimbabwe have been thrown a lifeline by the country’s new government, with the new agriculture minister, Perence Shiri, saying they will be offered 99-year leases on their land.

The leases would replace the five-year renewable leases introduced by former president Robert Mugabe after the violent land reforms of the 2000s which brought the agriculture-dominated economy of the former ‘‘breadbasket of Africa’’ to its knees.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, the new president who unseated Mugabe in November after a soft coup, has said he wants white farmers who were forced out of Zimbabwe to return and to help rebuild the country’s economy with foreign investors and other donors.

Among those cautiously considering a return is Dave Joubert, 69, who used to run a wildlife conservancy on 30,000 hectares in Matabeleland, western Zimbabwe. He now owns a butchery wholesaler in Howick, in neighbouring South Africa.

He said that his adult children, a son and a daughter, were eager to resurrect the family business, which they abandoned without even taking their furniture 15 years ago.

Joubert said he respected Mnangagwa, whom he knew personally, as a ‘‘very bright’’ man, adding: ‘‘If there’s anyone who could make the changes, it could be him.’’

However, he and others fear that Mnangagwa is hamstrung by the generals who put him in power and hold key portfolios in his cabinet, along with the factional fighting within the ruling Zanu-PF party that led to the ousting of Mugabe.

Craig Follwell, a dairy farmer in Zimbabwe’s Midlands province, Mnangagwa’s home region, said he had heard that the new president had stepped in to protect other white farmers from being forced out in the area. ‘‘As far as I am concerned, it brings security and the farmer will work without worries,’’ he said.