LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
Prospective farmers should opt for joint ventures as there is no land to give everyone for agriculture, a Cabinet minister has said.
There has been an increased demand for land amid growing interest in agriculture.
However, land is now a limited resource. There are 360 000 A1 and 21 000 A2 farmers who benefitted from the land reform programme.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development minister Anxious Masuka recently told Business Times that there are very few that may benefit from land audits from those with more than one farm, those underutilising land, those causing land degradation and those who have bigger land than the required size of one’s ecological region.
“There are more than 250 000 applicants on the land waiting list and not everyone can get land there. I have often said, you do not have to own land in order to do business on it, just like you do not have to own a house in order to live in it,” Masuka said.
He said the Ministry allows joint ventures which have to be registered with the Joint Venture Unit for compliance.
Last year, Masuka told the Parliament that all land reserved for resettlement had been exhausted.
“As of now, most of the land has been distributed. If you go around, you will not find a place that is vacant. Even where there is no farming, but in the registry, these farms will have owners,” Masuka said.
He said the land reform process was almost complete and what is left is for farmers to ramp up production.
“All the farms that are available have been given. One may move around and see an unsettled farm but invariably on our records, that farm would have been offered to someone.
“So on our database, it will appear as if it is occupied to an extent, because there is no additional land that is available to give to people, we now have gone back to look at redistributing that which we have given to others already.”
The government said it would have repossessed the land in the names of multiple farm owners but most people had already given the land to their kith and kin hence the government cannot repossess that land.
Government wants to transform the 21 000 A2 farmers to become perennially successful businesswomen and businessmen by 2025.
The Ministry aims to transform the 360 000 A1 farmers to become formal and viable small-to-medium enterprises by 2025.
This will involve the bankability of the 99 year leases and drilling of solar-powered boreholes across the country to deal with financing problems and inconsistent rainfall patterns respectively.
