Put land to productive use

ZIMBABWE’S land reform programme empowered thousands of previously marginalised black people and ensured that the skewed ownership of land, which favoured a minority white settler community, was redressed. It came at a huge cost to the country, inviting ruinous sanctions, bad publicity in the Western media and threats of invasion by former colonial powers, attesting to the importance of land to the economy of this nation.

To this day, the United Kingdom, its main ally the United States and some Western countries still maintain sanctions primarily over the land question which they want reversed. However, the Government has maintained that the land reform programme is irreversible and has moved to regularise the process by compensating white former commercial farmers, securing the tenure of land by availing bankable 99-year leases to new farmers, establishing a land and agricultural bank to fund farmers and conducting a comprehensive land audit to ascertain productivity on farms. It has over the years extensively supported new farmers with inputs, machinery and extension services.

This has seen productivity progressively improve since the turn of the millennium when it dipped drastically. Output for major crops such as maize, wheat, barley, sorghum, millet, rapoko; cash crops like tobacco, soyabean, sunflower, tea and coffee has surged as new farmers ramp up production. Due to their sheer numbers, new commercial farmers are filling up national silos aided in part by the industry of communal farmers whose yields continue to improve.

Zimbabwe’s maize and wheat yields in the past two years have been particularly impressive, contributing to the country’s largely successful import substitution programme that has reduced the import bill and saved much needed foreign currency. Soyabean production is at an all-time high, meaning cooking oil producers are getting their main raw material cheaper.

Agriculture is the economic mainstay of Zimbabwe and it is crucial that the sector has a modicum of stability to allow for production to proceed smoothly. Since assuming power in November 2017, the Second Republic has sought to move with speed in ensuring that normalcy returns to our farms and that the sector is well funded to anchor the wider economic revival efforts. Besides allocating generous votes in successive national budgets over the past four years to agriculture, the Government has other schemes on inputs, machinery and ancillaries to support the sector.

With yields for maize, a staple diet, exceeding national requirements currently, other sectors of agriculture such as livestock can be given due attention. The Government can look back at the past two years of bountiful harvests with satisfaction and plan ahead for the coming seasons with confidence buoyed by the fantastic performance of our farmers.

Zimbabwe can realistically dream of returning to the Sadc breadbasket status of yesteryear, but to achieve this it must ensure maximum production on its farms. In this regard, we are glad that it has embarked on an extensive audit to flush out multiple farm owners and locate underutilised land under the third and final phase of its Comprehensive National Agricultural Land Audit. As we report elsewhere on these pages, the Zimbabwe Land Commission has deployed a team of auditors to probe and locate vacant, abandoned and underutilised farms at over 220 000 properties allocated to indigenous farmers during the land reform programme.

The $3,5 billion exercise will also expose multiple farm owners and those leasing farms without authority from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development. To date, over 71 000 farms have been audited under two phases of the land audit which has a strong backing from President Mnangagwa who has undertaken to uproot all multiple farm owners and redistribute the farms to deserving Zimbabweans, including women and youths. ZLC chair Commissioner Tendai Bare told The Sunday Mail that farms in 38 districts will be audited countrywide.

“The agricultural land audit was carried out in two phases so far where approximately 71 614 farms (24 percent) have been audited since inception against a total of approximately 300 000 subdivisions on agricultural land,” she said.

“Approximately 228 000 farms are still outstanding. Government has directed that the land audit programme be completed in 2022, which will be the final phase of agricultural land audit. At least 16 out of 54 agricultural districts (29 percent) have been completed to date.”

The Government disbursed $5 million for the first phase of the audit in 2018, while an additional $14,5 million was availed for the subsequent phase the following year. The first audit unearthed gross underfunding of the agricultural sector and recommended the establishment of a Land and Agricultural Bank to facilitate funding for resettled farmers.

It is also recommended the establishment of an integrated Land Information Management System (LIMS) after investigations revealed widespread cases of fraudulent land allocations, rampant illegal leasing of land parcels and gross underutilisation, which is materially affecting agricultural output. We welcome the deployment of auditors for the third and final phase of the land audit and swift implementation of ZLC’s recommendations following the first and second phases.

The Government recently reconfigured AFC Holdings, expanding its mandate to cover the entire agriculture sector value chain as part a reform programme geared to transform the sector.

The Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) Land and Development Bank shall offer a comprehensive agricultural finance recovery programme which will go a long way in capacitating farmers to make them productive through increased investment on farms and contribution to economic growth. We also strongly recommend that multiple farm owners be stripped of their properties which should be re-allocated to deserving Zimbabweans who can put them to productive use.