“This is the best thing that could have happened to me and my family and the generality of black Zimbabweans,” ... Mr Matashu, 34, says he was allocated land by the government in 2001 after a white-owned farm was seized and its former owner emigrated to South Africa.
Good Stuff.
The story of land reform in Zimbabwe is complex and varied. But it is often not what the standard media narratives suggest. There is much potential, as yet unrealised. For other southern African countries that inherited a highly skewed land ownership structure from the colonial period, there are many lessons to be learned.
Indeed.
The Reality:
Higher corn prices already are “like a punishment,” said Appropriate Tambodzika, a 45-year-old father of two who’s a chrome miner in Zimbabwe’s Mutorashanga district, 60 miles north of Harare. Tambodzika also farms one hectare of corn and one hectare of tobacco to feed his family and supplement his income. Because that harvest won’t be ready until March or April, he and his wife Esther plan to skip meals so they can continue to pay their children’s school fees.
What did the white farmers [documentary] know about farming anyway, eh?
Here's some follow-up on a tough family who fought for their property rights against the toughest odds.
And to think that Benn Freeth was a director of the farmers unionin Zimbabwe.
ReplyDeleteCan you just imagine any one from the sorry procession of losers that we have had at the controls of the OFA, NFU, or the CFFO standing up and saying, "You simply cannot abandon people to their fates".
Now just a damned minute Kodiacmac! I can name several. Why there's...ummm...Jer....ummm...Ron....ummm...Mar...ummm...I think I see your point!
DeleteAh, Communism. Where the one-time revolutionary freedom-fighter throws off the shackles of British Law and redistributes the land to his family, close friends and girlfriends. Perhaps these new "farmers" have yet to figure out that you need to work hard to plan, irrigate and manage soil health - that maize / tobacco / cotton is a take-take-take crop rotation that destroys soil fertility, organic matter and water retention. A good lesson for Canada. Strip away property rights, overtly (Mugabe-style) or subvertly (McGuinty-style), and we can all look forward to death by thug-beating or starvation - take your pick.
ReplyDeleteMcGuinty - Mugabe. More than just name similarities.
DeleteBoth are (a) stupid (b) liars (c) thieves, however...... (d) wildly popular.