Zimbabwe : Challenging Western Distortions of Zimbabwe's Land Reform

Ankhur

Well-Known Member
REGISTERED MEMBER
Oct 4, 2009
14,325
2,956
Brooklyn
Occupation
owner of various real estate concerns
Challenging Western Distortions of Zimbabwe's Land Reform
By Gregory Elich

Global Research, February 21, 2011


For years, Western journalists have castigated Zimbabwe's land reform program. From afar, they pronounced land reform a failure for having brought about the total collapse of agriculture and plunging the nation into chronic food insecurity. Redistributed land, we are continually told, went to cronies with political connections, while ordinary people were almost entirely excluded from the process.......

(The article then goes into great lengths to illustrate how this BIG LIE, was a form of propaganda)


....There were two resettlement schemes implemented during fast track land reform: the A1 model, in which small farms intended to benefit the landless or disadvantaged were allocated, and the A2 model, which were larger farms that were expected to be more immediately productive. The AIAS found that most of the beneficiaries of land reform came from the communal areas, about 62 percent. Other ordinary people accounted for the majority of the remaining percentage. Applicants for A2 farms "were required to submit a business development plan and a proof of capacity to finance farm operations." For this reason urban residents unsurprisingly accounted for a far higher percentage of applicants for A2 farms than they did for A1 farms. Still, even in the A2 farms they rank second to communal farmers. (4)




Despite a lack of infrastructure, beneficiaries were quick to take up farming operations. For instance, nearly 72 percent of those allocated land in 2002, the peak year of land resettlement, began operations that same year. This, despite resistance by evicted commercial landowners, and the refusal of many of them to vacate the land. By 2003, the percentage of these resettled farmers that had begun farming had risen to almost 96 percent, a far cry from the popular image of land going to waste. (5)



Agricultural productivity, we are so often told, has been dismal since the launch of fast track land reform. The not always unstated implication of Western reports is that the land would have been best left in the hands of the few wealthy commercial landowners, as only they were capable of producing bountiful outputs. That view is a manifestation of the free market philosophy that is so comforting to the entitled: that the greatest good should go to the privileged few. From that vantage point, the many who suffer the consequences of an extreme and narrow concentration of wealth are deemed unworthy of consideration.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23311
 

Donate

Support destee.com, the oldest, most respectful, online black community in the world - PayPal or CashApp

Latest profile posts

HODEE wrote on Etophil's profile.
Welcome to Destee
@Etophil
Destee wrote on SleezyBigSlim's profile.
Hi @SleezyBigSlim ... Welcome Welcome Welcome ... :flowers: ... please make yourself at home ... :swings:
Back
Top