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News > World

Zimbabwe Land Committee to Downsize, Redistribute Large Farms

  • Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

    Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. | Photo: Reuters

Published 19 February 2018
Opinion

“We will downsize to below 450 hectares and also according to the production record of the farmer."

A land committee in Zimbabwe decided Sunday to identify farms that are large and underutilized to be downsized and redistributed, local newspaper The Herald reported. The decision was made by a committee based in Mashonaland Central's Mazowe District.

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The effort was signaled by President Emmerson Mnangagwa during a recent speech in which he said that in order to move forward with land reform, large farms should be downsized to allow for more to benefit from the reforms and to increase productivity.

Land officer Mark Kadaira said that the issue hopes to address the problem of illegal squatting on underused farms.

“There is an issue of illegal settlers at Jumbo Mine and we need to find alternative land for those people. We are hopeful that through the downsizing of farms exercise, we will get adequate land to relocate people at Manzou Farm and give them a hectare each,” Kadaira said.

Martin Dinha, head of Zimbabwe's provincial lands committee, said the body will "downsize to below 450 hectares and also according to the production record of the farmer."

"This is the last phase of the land reform program, we want to get to the production stage and we cannot continue allocating land," he added.

Mnangagwa, a ZANU-PF revolutionary veteran, took office after former president Robert Mugabe was made to resign by his party. The future direction of the country under Mnangagwa, particularly of the sweeping land reforms carried out under Mugabe's administration, have been a topic of national and international debate in recent months.

The current administration has said the land reforms are “irreversible,” but has also said that it would work to compensate white farmers who were evicted of land originally stolen during Zimbabwe's colonization.

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