As Mugabe chairs the AU summit today on Africa a way forward
to development another embarrassment has just come out that many of his A2 resettled
farmers have abandoned the land and some have now fully leased the farms to the
very white farmers the land was taken from, as the economy bites, I can reveal. One such farm in Nyamandlovu 50
km along Bulawayo Victoria Falls Highway allocated to a Mr Mpande has changed
hands back to Mr Raymond Smith.
The problem here is consistent with the analysis in my book
in 2011, Social justice and Food security: A UN global challenge.
“The Zimbabwean case, gives rise to other ignored factors of
agricultural food security, government policy and the rule of law. Just how the
current government (ZANU PF), managed to destroy the entire vibrant
agricultural sector in less than 8 years baffles many policy makers. The
government in the name of land redistribution, at a stroke of a pen wiped food
from the table of millions of Zimbabweans. The productive agricultural farms were
violently grabbed from previous owners and parceled out to Mugabe’s cronies.
From 2000 until 2008 agricultural production has been disrupted as the new
owners fail to productively utilize the land. Dams and rivers continue to
disappear as siltation takes its toll, rendering agricultural irrigation
impossible as water reservoirs dry up.
Once the new land owners were settled, there was no plan in place by the
government to financially assist with implements and technical know how to put
the production back on track. Critics argue that the land redistribution was a
political tool by Mugabe to dispose the white settlers as a punishment for
supporting the opposition party MDC during the referendum and parliamentary
elections of 2000”, Pfebve (2012:69)
The solutions we know, the talent we have, Zimbabweans what are we
waiting for?
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