President Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, which has mounted a six-year campaign to seize white-owned farms, is poised to allow hundreds of white farmers to return to their land as the country faces starvation and economic collapse.
“There could be some 300 whites back on farms by the end of next year,” Sam Moyo, a government land adviser, told the Guardian. “Most of them will be running commercial farms.”
Since November, 19 white farmers who lost ownership of their land have been granted 99-year, government-backed leases on resettled farms in a spectacular U-turn by Mr Mugabe.
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In July 2005 Mr Mugabe declared that his land reform policy would be complete only when there was “not a single white on the farms”. But a contracting economy, hyperinflation touching 1,100% and food shortages have forced the authorities to allow some interested whites to return.
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The land minister, Flora Buka, said the government had received more than 200 applications so far from whites to take up farming again. There are only about 600 white farmers left in Zimbabwe, down from 4,500 six years ago.
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The UN-funded World Food Programme has said that 2 million Zimbabweans will need food aid in the next six months despite improved agricultural output last season.
But the welcoming back of white farmers may be too little too late.
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