Government funding for new farmers in Zimbabwe to end

With effect from the next rain season towards the end of 2007, the Zimbabwean government will cease assisting the country's new farmers with input programmes,Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono has said.

Gono told farmers after that seven years after getting land under a controversial land redistribution programme, they should by now have acquired the requisite knowledge, skills and experience to enable them to conduct operations at a self-financing level. The sudden, politically charged expropriations of land from established white farmers and redistribution to new black farmers have been blamed for reduced agricultural productivity and the country's economic woes.

"It’s now seven years since we reclaimed our land but we continue looking at Government for support. Next season we will wean off all A2 (resettled commercial) farmers as they are now grown-ups," said Gono. Communal farmers, who he described as the backbone of farming in Zimbabwe, would continue accessing inputs through various government programmes.

The central bank governor also recommended the provision of adequate inputs and payment of handsome producer prices to farmers who grow food crops in Zimbabwe so as to avoid the wasteful use of foreign currency through the importation of food.

Many of the new farmers claim that it is often difficult to access government inputs and loans, with allegations that the politically well-connected are the major beneficiaries. Commercial banks have been reluctant to support the new farmers because of the many uncertainties in the details of the redistribution programme. Many of the new farmers do not have collateral required by the banks, and unresolved questions over the new farmers' security of tenure on their farms have not helped. Previously private land with title deeds has now become state land, with a few of the new farmers now able to get 99 year leases.