Zimbabwe: land reform programme blamed for severe food shortages

A Zimbabwean government minister has admitted that farm seizures have led to repeated crop failures and severe food shortages.

Zanu-PF President Robert Mugabe has always blamed Zimbabwe's food and economic crisis on years of drought and on a conspiracy by Western countries to bring down his government because of his controversial land reform programme.

But in a recent interview with the state-owned Herald newspaper, Mugabe's Deputy Agriculture Minister Sylvester Nguni said that although some of those given land were committed to agricultural production, many others were simply doing 'nothing' on the farms.

The UN recently criticised Mugabe's government for refusing aid for those made homeless during the government's Operation Murambatsvina (clear out the rubbish) campaign. Figures from the UN also show that up to three million Zimbabweans will need food aid this year.

Mr Nguni repeated the line that the poor rains were partly to blame for food shortages but he also told a meeting of the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union that 'the biggest letdown has been that people without the slightest idea of farming got land and the result has been declining agricultural output.'

White landowners previously owned most of Zimbabwe's best agricultural land. But in the last five years 4,000 white farmers, from a total of 4,500, have had their land seized and redistributed to blacks. Critics claim that government cronies were the main beneficiaries of the redistribution.

Dr Steve Kibble, CIIR Advocacy Coordinator for Africa and Yemen, said: 'This frank admission of failure should be seen in the light of president Mugabe's inability to impose his own authority and maintain party unity as conflict over his successor intensifies.

'ZANU-PF has for years been able to secure short-term political gains at the expense of long-term economic decline to buy off its supporters. It undertook the fast-track land reform programme because of threats to its electoral hegemony. This led to the virtual destruction of the commercial farming sector - the elite seizing the land but not being able to use it effectively - and hence the current food crisis.

'The regime is increasingly unable to reward its supporters due to massive economic decline. Economic decay has also had devastating social consequences: thousands of people suffer severe food shortages and a million tons of food imports are needed to avert widespread starvation. More than 150,000 displaced farm workers now live as internal migrants in unbearable conditions and as many as 30 per cent of the original number have already died from AIDS and other diseases, deprivation and stress'.