White farmers offer government one million hectares

White farmers and private financial backers have offered to give the government a million hectares of farmland to resettle landless blacks, the scheme’s coordinator, Malcolm Vowles, told IRIN on Thursday. “This is a genuine attempt to break the impasse over land in this country,” Vowles said. Zimbabwe’s mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) has been deadlocked in negotiations with the government over the confiscation and violent occupation by black militants of hundreds of white-owned farms.

The proposal has been made by a group calling itself the Zimbabwe Joint Resettlement Initiative (ZJRI), a consortium of farmers’ leaders and business interests. “This ceased to be an issue between government and the CFU a long time ago, that’s why other interest groups have joined this initiative,” Vowles said. He added that ZJRI had land immediately available and pledged farmers would assist resettled families with technical expertise.

“It’ll be good quality land across the provinces, government wants to nationalise 5 million hectares, but we’re trying to get things moving by making this firm offer,” said Vowles. At a press conference in Harare on Thursday the ZJRI also promised that the 4,500 strong CFU, would end all litigation against the government over land seizures.

Zimbabwe gained independence from white-minority rule in 1980. The government of President Robert Mugabe promised to redistribute farmland to the black rural poor, historically disadvantaged and forced to eke out a living on overcrowded and arid communal lands. But reform has proceeded extremely slowly - initially because of financial and constitutional impediments. The opposition has charged that cronyism and mismanagement have also served to keep at least one-third of the country’s prime farmland in white hands. Last year, ruling party militants began occupying hundreds of white-owned farms, demanding they be seized and redistributed to landless blacks.

The government ignored court rulings ordering it to clear the farm occupiers and it broke off talks with farmers after the CFU won a Supreme Court ruling declaring the land seizures illegal. The government has promised to continue land seizures anyway.

The ZJRI envisioned 20,000 black families currently living in the communal areas being resettled on the million hectares. Vowles said the new initiative would address aspects of compensation for landowners, possibly funded by foreign donors, once dialogue had been re-established with the government.

The offer has been submitted to vice president Joseph Msika, head of the government’s resettlement committee. “We think the offer will be looked at positively, there have been ongoing formal and informal discussions between ourselves and the government and we’re optimistic,” Vowles said. Attempts by IRIN to elicit a response from the ministry of agriculture were unsuccessful.