Resettled Zimbabwean Farmers Left High and Dry

Ten years ago, former bricklayer Samuel Musengi was allocated a nine-hectare plot to cultivate in Zimbabwe as part of an accelerated phase of land reform that saw tens of thousands of black families resettled on what were once vast, mostly white-owned commercial farms.

It’s not going so well for him; nor for many others.

Increasingly unpredictable weather and a lack of government support has made it all but impossible for Zimbabwe’s resettled farmers to achieve anything like the full potential of their plots.

Even the government’s weather forecasts are unreliable, according to 42-year-old Musengi, who grows maize and beans and raises a few head of livestock in Wedza, some 90 kilometres southeast of Harare.

http://www.irinnews.org/feature/2017/04/21/resettled-zimbabwe-farmers-left-high-and-dry

Jessie Kalsmith/USAID-BEST Project

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