Zimbabwe Holds Farm Compensation Workshop
Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of Africa, is now ranked among the lowest in the region in terms of agricultural production, the European Union Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Fillipe Van Damme said Thursday.
Van Damme made the remarks in Harare while addressing delegates to the Initial Consensus Based Compensation Mechanisms Workshop meant to look at possible ways of compensating dispossessed white farmers whose land was expropriated by the government during the chaotic land reform programme which began in 2000.
The meeting was organised by the Ministry of Lands, supported by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
“In fact, nowadays and because of compounding factors such as climate change, inadequate farming practices, poor infrastructure or limited access to inputs and credits, the productivity of the agricultural sector of Zimbabwe is among the lowest in the region,” said the ambassador.
Van Damme said although the land reform programme was inevitable as the unequal access to land had to be corrected; it was the implementation that was questionable.
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