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Zimbabwe economic crisis hits Mugabe's land reforms
Cris Chinaka
ARTICLE (December 11 2002) : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has faced down both international criticism and local protest to push through his controversial land reforms, seizing white-owned farms and handing them to black farmers.
But that land reform programme is now threatened by an economic crisis blamed on Mugabe's own government as Zimbabwe's inexperienced new farmers scramble for seed, fertiliser and technical support just a month after the start of the cropping season.
The government says more than 200,000 people have been allocated plots on land seized from commercial white farmers, but officials say few of the new farmers are actually able to till the fields.
"The economy is in such a state that it has been difficult for Mugabe to protect his prized trophy from its vagaries," said Brian Raftopoulos, a senior researcher at the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS).
"The irony of the government's so-called fast-track resettlement programme is that it is going to fail on the failure of the government to run the economy in a decent manner," he added.
Two provincial governors told Zimbabwe's official media last month that only about half the people allocated medium and large-scale farms in the fertile north-western Mashonaland West and Mashonaland East regions had taken up their plots.
Fights and chaos: Critics say the whole resettlement programme has been chaotic, marked by mountains of paperwork and fights over plots with homes already in place or situated near basic facilities such as roads, clinics and schools.
Many new farmers lack the financial resources to launch their new careers, and critics say the government's own loan scheme has been inadequate to meet everyone's requirements.
Zimbabwe is struggling through a severe economic crisis which many blame on gross mismanagement by Mugabe's government.
The economy is in its fourth year of recession, unemployment in the formal sector has doubled to 70 percent in the last 10 years, inflation is at a record 144 percent, the country has no foreign currency reserves and has suffered intermittent fuel shortages for three years.
Mugabe, who came to in power 1980 when the former Rhodesia gained independence from Britain, denies he is responsible for Zimbabwe's crisis, saying the economy has been sabotaged by Western powers seeking to overthrow his government.
The 78-year-old former guerrilla leader has vowed to rebuild the southern African country's shattered economy on his land reform programme, under the slogan "land is the economy and the economy is land."
But even beneficiaries of his land redistribution programme say the agricultural reforms are not going to help the economy without state subsidies and sufficient supplies of seed, fertiliser and animal feed.
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made says Zimbabwe produced 47,000 tonnes of the staple maize seed this year, way above the country's normal requirements. Demand was higher because of the emergence of newly settled farmers who do not have their own stockpiles, he said.
Made says the resettlement programme is in no danger and the government is determined to mobilise all resources to support it.
However a severe shortage of foreign currency to import raw materials has left Zimbabwean companies unable to produce adequate supplies of vital farming inputs such as fertiliser, and the little that is available is too expensive for most poor farmers.
Whites forced off: The government has forced more than two thirds of the country's 4,500 white commercial farmers off their land this year to make way for blacks whose ancestors, Mugabe says, had their fertile land "stolen" during British colonialism over a century ago.
Zimbabwe has been gripped by a political and economic crisis since pro-government militants began invading white-owned farms in February 2000 to support Mugabe's land redistribution drive.
Zimbabwean commercial banks, left with millions of dollars in unpaid debts from dispossessed white farmers, say it will be difficult to fund new farmers in an environment in which property rights are not guaranteed.
The government says it is still looking at the issue of title deeds, but its critics say without settling the subject of ownership, commercial agriculture is doomed in Zimbabwe.
"This is a critical point, because without title, there is no legal basis for anyone's claim to own land," said Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a pressure group fighting for white farmers to retain their land.
One of Zimbabwe's largest fertiliser manufacturers, Zimbabwe Phosphates Industries (Zimphos), said last month that the fertiliser shortage in the country was likely to get worse because of increased foreign exchange problems, rising production costs and unrealistic retail prices imposed by the government.
Companies had been forced to cut production by as much as 50 percent in the past year to stay in business.
"We said this programme is going to be a disaster, and everybody can now see it's a disaster," said Renson Gasela, secretary for agriculture for the main opposition MDC.
"What we are seeing is a confirmation that we really need a land reform programme that can attract international support to see success," he said.
Courtesy Business Recorder
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Pakissan.com;
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