Farmers get stern warning

Namibia’s black communal farmers on Monday urged the country’s 4,000 mainly white commercial farmers to speed up land reform to avoid Zimbabwe-style farm invasions, the ‘Namibian’ reported. The Namibia National Farmers’ Union (NNFU) said the government’s willing-seller, willing-buyer policy had failed to address the land imbalance because white commercial farmers were unwilling to sell. “We wish to remind them that our constituency has a big land hunger and limited patience. We are therefore requesting commercial farmers to be serious and to co-operate with the legal process,” the NNFU was quoted as saying in a resolution passed at its annual congress which ended on Monday. According to the report, the congress opened last week with a warning from NNFU leader Pintile Davids that the slow pace of land reform could produce another Zimbabwe, where hundreds of white-owned farms have been seized by self-styled liberation war veterans with the support of President Robert Mugabe’s government. “We would like to extend a word of caution to our countrymen. Do not push us too far... we are capable of doing anything,” Davids was quoted as saying last week. Namibia has suffered no farm invasions, but only about 35,000 Namibians have been resettled on commercial farmland since independence in 1990, the report said, adding that about 243,000 communal farmers were still waiting for land. According to the report, Namibia has 4,045 commercial farms and government statistics indicate that about 30.5 million hectares of land were owned by white farmers while only about 2.2 million hectares were owned by black farmers. The Namibia Agricultural Union, which represents white commercial farmers, has stated its support for land reform and has been working with the government.