(TALKZIMBABWE) Land issues and transparency

Land issues and transparency
Felicia Greene - Opinion
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:52:00 +0000

HAS anyone given any thought to some transparency regarding land issues?

- How many farms are in the hands of white farmers in total?
- Why is there a white farmer in the Midlands who is arrested every time he waters his wheat?
- He is growing wheat to make bread for the nation, yet he is still on his farm, but he still gets arrested for watering the wheat? why?
- How many blacks are on farms that are not producing any thing, who have cleared the land of all timber to exist, resulting in silting of local dams?
- How many blacks are on farms and producing for the nation?
- How many blacks are on farms and producing Forex for the Reserve Bank?

In 1997 the curtains came down on white farmers warning them to shape up and share with the blacks, or ship out.

Now, in 2009, the Government warning those who are not producing for the nation are about to be relocated so they too should shape up, or they will be shipped out.

- Does this mean we will have homeless families wandering our streets again?
- Why can’t those farms (that are not producing) merely be split up into 50 acre plots for those families who want to grow crops on small holdings?
- Why must everyone own thousands of acres?
- Is it the main abode the dictates the desire to own a specific farm? If these farms were split into smallholdings the main farmhouse, which has electricity and water, could be designated as the shopping centre, school and clinic.
- What is the deciding factor on who gets which farm?
- How many farms is anyone family allowed to own, or does this depend on who lives in the main house and who lives in the little house?
- Is it the farmhouses that are as sort after these days?
- Since the land invasions it is doubtful any farmer has wasted paint and effort in maintaining an abode, like fixing leaking taps, when they are likely to lose it at any time.

Whatever the results is,

Our Nation is now going hungry despite the fact that it was the communal farmers who once fed us, while the white commercial farmers focused on export agriculture, raising Forex for the Reserve Bank.

Strangely this is a system that worked, so why are those communal farmers no longer feeding the nation? We know why the white farmers are no longer focusing on export agriculture because most of them have left to farm in Zambia, Nigeria and Tanzania.

- How many of those black communal farmers have lost their land?
- When the BSAC commandeered the land they allocated 96% to the whites and 4% to the blacks.
- Why not just reverse this situation and earmark 96% to the blacks and give back the whites farmers 4%. They are quite capable of working miracles when it comes to farming. All they need is stability to be motivated.

On the other hand, why not just split the land 50% to those blacks who have proven that they are intent on farming, and 50% to those whites who too have proven that they are intent on farming, i.e. 50/50 between anyone who wants to farm and feed the nation, or generate Forex through exports.

Zimbabwe is an agricultural and mining region, therefore, whosever does not want to go underground at 51% ownership and mine, should be free to work the soil above the ground, thus generating jobs and revenue for the nation.

How can we move forward if no one is free to generate jobs, food and revenue for the nation?

Transparency is really quite simple, actually. It depends on what your aims are.