HARARE – Zimbabwe’s white farmers have submitted an ambitious agricultural recovery plan to government that proposes converting into interest-bearing bonds the amount owed by Harare to farmers for farms expropriated during a controversial decade-long land reform programme.
The proposal, which was developed over the past eight months, is based on a cost-recovery model that would allow the cash-strapped Zimbabwe government to gradually pay off affected white farmers for land acquired while also reviving the country’s battered agriculture sector.
The model revolves around re-establishing values of the land and all assets to create new flows of investor funds, thereby enabling the Treasury to compensate the farmers on a cost-recovery basis. Central to the success of the proposal would be an agreement between government and the farmers on the total value of land and investments on farms acquired since the redistribution exercise began in 2000.
Zimbabwe’s white commercial farmers last year demanded US$5 billion in immediate compensation from the government before they could vacate their farms.
The broke Harare regime has however refused to compensate the farmers for land lost, accusing the British government of reneging on a 1979 promise to fund Zimbabwe’s resettlement programme.
It is envisaged that, for the model to succeed, the government would have to acknowledge the debt owed as an investment by the farmers which ultimately needs to be settled.
Once the total value of land and assets owed to the farmers is established, it would be underwritten by financial institutions or
donors such as the World Bank to have “real bankable and tradable value”. “Values are then apportioned against title deeds, which in effect become interest-bearing bonds of a specific value until they are fully redeemed,” the Commercial Farmers Union said.
This would effectively mean that title deeds for each farm would have a bankable and tradable value, allowing the owners to sell their title to other investors, to borrow against the value of that title to invest in other businesses or to leave his title in place and earn interest as an investment until fully redeemed.
The CFU believes that international lines of credit would be opened up through local banking structures to on?lend to the title holders once real tradable values of all agricultural land are established against title.
Donors would be required to fund a land commission and an agricultural asset audit on a grant basis as well as provide funding for the proposed agricultural recovery bank (ARB) through a revolving fund.
The audit would establish a full comprehensive register on all agricultural land in Zimbabwe as well as a directory of owners or
occupiers on all types of tenure on all land in the country.
The ARB would be critical for the process of agricultural recovery through the re-establishment of land values in the country by funding an active land market.
This would be achieved by providing finance to those wishing to farm including government and funding structured resettlement schemes which would enable A1 beneficiaries to be moved into settlements with proper schools, water, clinics, supply networks and transport networks.
The proposed bank is also expected to engage displaced or retired commercial farmers in a programme of skill transfers through mentoring schemes.

By The Zimbabwean