Feature - Last commercial farmers hanging on

Sixty-year-old Jo Swath has been farming maize in the Macheke area of Mashonaland East province for the past 15 years. When the government embarked on the compulsory acquisition of farms for redistribution to landless Zimbabweans in 2000, Swath was spared one of his three properties. However, officials from the provincial land committee visited him three weeks ago and informed him that his remaining farm had now been designated for acquisition. They told him it would be subdivided, leaving a portion of the property for him. "The visit took me by surprise. I was beginning to think that things were starting to look up for me since my other two farms were taken to resettle some black families. I tried to point out to the officials from the provincial administrator's office that the intended acquisition of my remaining farm was not proper, since the government was insisting on a 'one man, one farm' policy. But one of them rudely said I could be removed and forced to join the queue of applicants wanting new plots," Swath told IRIN. The government had announced that its controversial fast-track land reform programme ended in August 2002. Swath said he therefore approached a law firm representing the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) for legal advice and was told to lodge a court application barring the acquisition of his farm. But despite this, new settlers have trickled onto his property, setting up temporary structures as they look forward to the coming raining season. The police were informed but are not taking any action, despite a provisional court order directing them to evict the settlers. Swath is one of around 600 white farmers who have remained on the land. Before land reform began, the CFU had some 4,500 members, who occupied 11 million hectares of Zimbabwe's prime agricultural land. According to CFU president Colin Cloete, some of those who lost their land in the initial - often violent - wave of government-backed land invasions, have relocated to neighbouring African countries, or emigrated overseas. However, a sizeable number have moved into Zimbabwe's towns and cities, hoping that their court applications contesting the seizures will one day be processed in their favour. Those who managed to cling on to their farms were able to do so for a variety of reasons. Farmers like Swath struck deals, giving up some of their land for redistribution. "I made a mutual agreement with the land authorities that they could take my other two farms and leave me with one. A notice of no intention to acquire the farm was issued," he explained. "It was not easy, though. In 2001, a certain war veteran led a band of settlers onto my farm but the provincial administrator's office intervened and they went away," Swath said. Other farmers were rescued because they had long-standing working relations with influential black Zimbabweans, who used their connections to dissuade the authorities from acquiring their land. Stoff Hawgood, chairman of the National Association of Dairy Farmers, acknowledged that black businessmen played a crucial role in ensuring that most of his members remained on their farms. He mentioned Anthony Mandiwanza, the president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, and Thompson Mabika of Dairiboard Zimbabwe, as some of those influential figures. "Their efforts with government have, I believe, resulted in so many dairy farmers still being on their farms today," Hawgood declared in his report to the association's annual general meeting in July. For David Connolly, a beef and dairy farmer in Matebeleland South province, recourse to the courts was his salvation. "I am aware that the police and some court officials, who are supposed to the enforce and interpret the law, have been unwilling to help white farmers for obvious political reasons. However, I remained steadfast in pushing the courts to evict the squatters who camped on my farm in 2001, and I succeeded," Connolly told IRIN. A recently instituted Presidential Land Review Committee last month acknowledged that the resettlement of land-hungry black Zimbabweans was being hampered by court applications challenging the legality of the gazetting and acquisition of farms by commercial farmers. This seriously curtailed production, the committee said, as some of the farms were left idle. An interim report by the committee also accused some senior figures within the ruling party of multiple farm ownership, despite the government's policy of "one man, one farm". Connolly, who said he enjoyed good relations with settlers on neighbouring farms, added that his farm had not attracted a lot of attention from would-be settlers because, being a ranch, it was not suitable for ordinary crop farming in the dry southern province. Others, according to the CFU, had not been so fortunate. In a number of provinces white commercial farmers, particularly those whose farms have been partitioned to make way for the new settlers, complain that their new neighbours are disrupting their operations. They charge that some new farmers steal and vandalise their equipment, snare their animals and threaten them with eviction. "There are still many dairy farmers continuing to face threats on a daily basis from land occupiers, who continue to make unreasonable demands and apply pressure in the ongoing efforts to force them to say, ‘enough is enough’, and pack their bags and leave, as so many have already done," Hawgood said. Mac Crawford, CFU vice-president, told delegates at the union's 60th annual congress this week that farm equipment worth Zim $75 billion (US $91 million) had been stolen or vandalised. Cloete recently announced that farm evictions continued to occur, particularly in Mashonaland West and Mashonaland East. "These illegal evictions have disrupted production extensively, and several wheat crops, as well as export crops and preparations for summer food, have been affected. The [CFU] appeals to the relevant authorities to put a stop to these disruptive evictions," Cloete said in a statement. He added that acquisition orders were still being issued, mainly to farms which did not qualify for acquisition and were currently producing not only food, but crops earning foreign currency. An assessment by UN agencies found food production in Zimbabwe has fallen by more than 50 percent measured against a five-year average. As a result of land reform, large-scale agriculture produced only about one-tenth of its 1990s output. However, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said this week, "the CFU has become irrelevant to what is on the ground." The official Herald newspaper on Thursday quoted Made as saying: "There are a few remnants of former white commercial farmers, about 200 of them, and the tendency is to lecture to 11 million Zimbabweans about the destruction of the economy. "Really, if we look at how they say we have destroyed the economy, you wonder why they don't see how they have destroyed it through their racist view on the land issue. They started by exporting crops grown here, retaining forex, banking it outside, growing flowers instead of food crops, and they even slaughtered dairy cows, and now they are burning pastures," said the minister. "This group has played mischief all the time, because they think they are a special race. Anyway, I hope they had a nice congress," Made added.