Two Decades On, Zimbabwe Takes Stock Of Mugabe Land Reform Legacy
Benard Chinyemba , 60, a qualified mechanical engineer who was offered a farm during Zimbabwe’s land reform programme and became a commercial farmer, inspects a sugar bean crop with his son at his 80-hectare Benchi farm in Glendale, near Harare on March 4, 2020. – Chinyemba grows maize, fish, soya and sugar beans. Eighty-year-old Isobel Simons calmly narrated how she and her late husband lost their 728-hectare Zimbabwe farm two decades ago to Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reforms.
Critics blame the land programme for wreaking havoc on the agriculture sector — a mainstay of the economy. According to the World Food Programme, 56 of the country’s 60 districts are experiencing “crisis” hunger and the virus pandemic risks driving people into “deeper desperation”.For Chinyemba, the government was right “repossessing” land from the whites, but they deserve compensation, if only for improvements.
Ultimately a deal was struck that the new government would not embark on any land reforms in the first decade in power. Simons said white farmers deluded themselves into thinking they were untouchable and indispensable “royal game” because agriculture was key to the economy.
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