A Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front legislator has called for increased productivity in agriculture so that Zimbabwe can regain its status as the region’s breadbasket.
Reuben Marumahoko, a former deputy minister, said for Zimbabwe to increase agricultural productivity farmers who were resettled should take farming as a business venture and not leisure.
“When the land redistribution programme was launched, it was a noble idea but was done in a haphazard and haste manner, which created problems on the land use,” he said.
“We now should be taking steps of correcting these problems by taking a stance that farming is a business venture and not leisure. Farming needs careful planning and proper investment so that there is economic development at the end.”
He added: “So what we should be concentrating on is looking at the proper methodologies and full support of the farming programme to enable us to have a bumper harvest and return the bread-basket status of Zimbabwe.
“My advice to you is that you have been given a chance to redeem Zimbabwe from the clutches of poverty and when you are fighting a war, you fight for whatever it is that you want. After the war, you then look for ways of solving the problems that led to that war.”
Marumahoko said since the government wanted to pay compensation to former white farmers whose land was taken, the new farmers had to pay taxes.
He therefore advocated that the Land Commission should have prosecution powers and should not be overridden by any minister.
“This Commission should not be used by the minister as a political laptop but should be a people’s desktop; not a minister’s lapdog but a people’s watch dog,” he said.
“This will enable the new farmers to be productive because historically, we have heard people saying whites were doing the farming and yet in actual fact, they were armchair and distance farmers. The only farmers who were on the ground were the blacks who were given the land.”
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