https://www.veritaszim.net/node/3994

March 4, 2020

Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement published the Rural Land (Farm Sizes) (Amendment) Regulations, 2020 (No. 2) (SI 41 of 2020) which announced new maximum farm sizes permitted at law in all the agricultural regions in the country.

Zimbabwe starts repossessing under-utilized farms

The Zimbabwean government started the process of repossessing under-utilized, vacant, and abandoned farms to ensure that land is fully utilized. The government has started implementing the one-man one-farm policy so that landless Zimbabweans can be allocated land.

Cabinet Approval of farm reallocation and downsizing

Cabinet approved the first clean-up of land allocations as a result of the ongoing farm audit, with reallocation of 24 farms under multiple farm-ownership and 367 abandoned or vacant farms, and downsizing of 71 farms to the maximum permitted size for their ecological region.

Submission of the land audit to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement by the Land Commission.

An initial report of the second phase of the national agricultural land audit, expected to rationalise farm ownership and sizes countrywide, is now complete and will soon be made public, a Cabinet minister said. In July 2019, the Government started rolling out the second phase of the national agricultural land audit.

The land audit sought to analyse land allocation data and the extent of land distribution with respect to gender, equity classification, environmental management, extent of multiple land ownership and double allocations.

Correction of anomalies on land acquisition that disadvantaged the black indigenous farmers.

Indigenous farmers whose farms were appropriated by Government under the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme can now apply to repossess their land under new regulations gazetted on 6 March 2020.

Conducting of the land audit on 57,000 farms

The Zimbabwe Land Commission (ZLC) has so far covered 57 000 farms in two phases of its national audit and might complete the exercise by year end, resources permitting, ZLC chairperson Commissioner Tendai Bare has said.The audit seeks to inform Government’s existing and future agricultural policies and inspire the development of strategies to increase productivity and promote social equity and environmentally sustainable farming practices.

Mission to deal with land reform thieves.

Hon Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, Rtd Air Chief Marshal Perrence Shiri wrote a letter to Mudarikwa S, among others, withdrawing the offer letter to one of Mudarikwa's farms, because it had been unearthed that Mudarikwa S had another farm and was sub-letting the other. 

Uncovering of serious irregularities, illegal sales and multiple farm ownership by the land audit.

A government-funded audit in Zimbabwe has revealed serious irregularities in the redistribution of land seized from white commercial farmers in 2000 and parcelled out to indigenous people, some with no knowledge of taking care of productive farms. According to the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper, the National Agricultural Land Audit which was conducted in the country’s 10 districts and 10 provinces between October and November last year and only covers 6 percent of the targeted land, also revealed that some farmers sold the farms and others leased them without government approval. Tendai Bare, chairperson of the Zimbabwe Land Commission that was in charge of the auditing process which involved over 18,000 farmers, told the newspaper that fraudulent land allocations and other gross irregularities resulted in low agricultural output in the country.

As a result, the commission recommended a thorough clean-up exercise to ensure that land is utilized accordingly unlike today in which thousands of farmers are failing to till the land due to lack of financial resources, poor planning and multiple farm ownership, which has resulted in haphazard land tillage, improper record keeping, employment of unskilled managers and different government departments issuing lease agreements and other documents.

Deployment of Enumerators by the Zimbabwe Land Commission to begin the land audit countrywide.

Zimbabwe Land Commission deploys enumerators to begin land  audit countrywide.