Wednesday, March 23, 2016

We can't pay: Zimbabwe farmers resist compensating evicted white landowners | Top News | Reuters

We can't pay: Zimbabwe farmers resist compensating evicted white landowners | Top News | Reuters: "HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's plan to win back international funding by paying compensation to white farmers forced off their land faces a major snag: the black farmers expected to stump up the cash say they don't have it.

The new occupants working the land, many of who had few farming skills when they were resettled, say they can barely make ends meet, let alone pay an extra levy.

Their agricultural output is a fraction of the level seen before 2000, when President Robert Mugabe - saying he sought to correct colonial injustices - introduced land reforms which led to thousands of experienced white farmers being evicted.

They are also being hammered by Zimbabwe's worst drought in a quarter of a century and toiling under a stagnating economy that has seen banks reluctant to lend and cheaper food imports from the likes of South Africa undermining their businesses.

"Are farmers able to pay? I will say no. Is the land being productive? I will say no again," said Victor Matemadanda, secretary general of a group representing war veterans who led the land seizure drive in 2000 and are now farmers."



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