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Dr Chombo

Ruth Butaumocho
The move by white former commercial farmers to court black farmers in Zimbabwe is an attempt to seek relevance and reverse gains of the land reform programme, Zanu-PF secretary for Land Reform and Resettlement, Cde Ignatius Chombo, has said.In an interview yesterday, Cde Chombo said the Commercial Farmers Union members were no longer relevant in the country’s farming sector, to which they contributed only a small fraction.

“What is the percentage of whites in this country? It is less than one percent. So the whites with land, with farms should reflect on their population situation and be content.

“We also think the land has been distributed as fairly as possible.  In any case, former white commercial farmers are no longer relevant to this sub sector. We now have more than 200 000 farmers of all shapes and sizes and those are the people whose voices Government is listening to. 110 white commercial farmers cannot dictate how the Zimbabwe farmers can proceed.

“When you compare that figure with 200 000 indigenous farmers in the country, it does not make sense,” he said.
Far from being sincere about the land reform programme in Zimbabwe, Cde Chombo said the CFU members were jumping ship from the sinking MDC-T, to seek relevance from a system they had been fighting against.

“Now that their party, which they sponsored in its creation and which they called Movement for Democratic Change has been rejected by the people, they now want to find other avenues to try and be relevant in a situation in which they are not players.

“The CFU should come out clean. Who has sent them and what is their game plan? They cannot masquerade as if they like Zimbabwe.
“They don’t like Zimbabwe. They are messengers of their kith and kin in London who are trying to find other tricks or tactics to come and play a role in Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector. We should not allow that to happen,” he said.

Cde Chombo said existing indigenous associations needed to be wary of the CFU, which had been at the forefront of denouncing land reform and calling for sanctions, rather than embrace their intentions.

“They have been gallivanting, going all over the world, rubbishing and tarnishing the image of this country.  For instance, in the flower industry, they made sure that Holland will never buy flowers from black Zimbabweans because they said the land was acquired in an unprocedural manner. Yet the acquisition was done consistently with the dictates of the laws of our country,” he said.

Cde Chombo added that it was because of this demonisation that Government had to make the relevant Constitutional amendments in order to address the topical issue of land.

He, however, said white commercial farmers were free to join any commercial farmers’ union of their choice, but added that Zimbabweans would become suspicious once they try to come and organise the farmers.

“Only farmers with land can join farmers’ unions. Do they have land? If you are not a farmer why do you want to join the farmers union? The various associations all over are there to speak for members.

“Why do these former farmers whose land was given to the majority black farmers want to form a farmers’ union?” he said.
He said former white commercial farmers should not give themselves the credit of Zimbabwe’s agricultural success because it was actually the majority of black people who have been running these entities.

“We need to remove the myth that whites are good farmers. Blacks are the farmers.  The absence of finance to fund agriculture is the issue. Nearly all the banks in the country were dependent on 4 000 white farmers who were in agriculture. Now because of sanctions we cannot do that.

“We will get to a stage where there is sufficient funding for our farmers and they will succeed. Former white commercial farmers should not use absence of finance to seek relevance for themselves,” Cde Chombo said.

CFU is courting the black farmers into forming a federation of all farmers’ unions.  CFU has since approached the Zimbabwe Farmers Union with the proposal that is expected to culminate in an agreement to form a federation of all farmers’ unions.