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From Zim Online (SA), 3 May, 2005

Zimbabwe to pay white farmers, lure others back

Harare - The Zimbabwe government has secretly approached former owners of Kondozi farm to return and resuscitate the giant export-earning horticultural concern in what insiders said was part of a wider plan to recall expelled white farmers to revive the country’s collapsed agricultural sector. Impeccable sources said under the plan the Ministry of Agriculture will in coming months approach selected farmers, especially those with expertise in horticulture, tobacco and dairy production to ask them to return to Zimbabwe to farm. The farmers will be compensated for property and equipment destroyed during the government’s chaotic and often violent land reform exercise and not for loss of revenue. But the farmers will receive immense support and preferential treatment from the state to reestablish themselves on the land, according to the sources. As well as luring white farmers back to the land the government shall also select another group of farmers whom it will compensate at market value both for loss of land and equipment during the farm seizures. The sources said the two-pronged strategy was meant to portray the government as committed to reviving the mainstay agriculture sector as well as to paying fair compensation to white farmers in a bid to pave way for reengagement with the international community.

"Kondozi is only the beginning," said a senior Agricultural Ministry official, who did not want to be named. He added: "we will target two groups of farmers, the first will be lured back to resume farming while the second will be paid real market level compensation to demonstrate to all that the government is willing to compensate white farmers, resources permitting." Agriculture Minister Joseph Made refused to discuss the matter when contacted only saying "I do not know about that," before slamming the phone down. Neither Moyo nor the De Klerks could be reached for comment on the matter. But sources said the government’s overtures had so far yielded little with for example the former owners of Kondozi refusing to return to Zimbabwe because they have already established a similar venture in neighbouring Zambia. Dozens of white farmers chased from Zimbabwe settled in Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, with some as far afield as Australia and Nigeria and are unlikely to easily give up their new homes to return to Zimbabwe. Agriculture has plummeted since the farm seizure with production of tobacco, the country’s biggest single foreign currency earner, falling from more than 200 million kg in the 1999/2000 season to a merger 60 million kg this year. Food production fell by more than 60 percent with Zimbabwe, which once exported food surplus to neighboring countries, now surviving on handouts from international food agencies. About four million or a quarter of the country’s 12 million people could starve this year unless donor groups chip in with food aid.

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