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Africa Subsaharan
YJCMTSU: Desperate Mugabe allows white farmers to come back
2006-12-17
Economic collapse has forced Zimbabwe to reconsider its notorious land reform policy
President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, which has mounted a six-year campaign to seize white-owned farms, is beginning to allow some white farmers to return to their land as the country faces starvation and economic collapse.

Since November, 19 white farmers who lost ownership of their land have been granted 99-year government-backed leases on resettled farms. "We wanted to come back, because it's home," one farmer told The Independent on Sunday on his 100-hectare farm outside the capital, Harare, where he is planning to grow maize and tobacco. "Farming has been in my family for generations. We're just happy to be back on the land."
Posted by:.com

#13  Huh? Overnight? I don't think so. But I've lived near enough farms in the US Midwest to know that the usual formula is corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans. As for how long you can sustain a corn/tobacco formula -- well I don't know for sure, but I bet it's not decades.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder   2006-12-17 15:29  

#12  Scooter McGruder,

Zim-Bob needs you. All those years the honkeys grew maize and tobacco, your waffle will replace the Nitrogen in the soil over-night. Get your zanu-pf card here.

And don't forget the cows got Cog-Diss methane.
Posted by: rhodesiafever   2006-12-17 14:01  

#11  Redneck Jim, I think you might be on to something. The article mentions plans for corn and tobacco crops. That's NOT sustainable farming. You need soybeans (or peanuts) to put nitrogen back in the soil. Maybe the plan is to get a few quick, profitable, harvests in and then ditching the place again - leaving behind depleted soil that won't support most food crops?
Posted by: Scooter McGruder   2006-12-17 13:34  

#10  Thank you Mitch H, backs up the post re Brit diamond mine from the other day, free for all that it was.

Just saying Rhodies arent naive to the Moosed one.
Posted by: rhodesiafever   2006-12-17 13:28  

#9  The banks won't accept the farms as collateral

No, that' the banks can't accept the farms as collateral, because the farmers don't own them - all they've got are useless governmental leases which are repudiatable on short notice and thus uncollectable by the banks. Talk about doomed... no farmer in his right mind would ever agree to such a deal. It's a ticket towards starvation or execution by economically illiterate thugs.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2006-12-17 12:41  

#8  Anonymoose,

I don't think you will find any naive "Rhodesians" in Zimboland. Check out some sites run by youngsters who never knew the war, they are proud to have names like Zimbo-Ouen, and hate Rhodesians. The fact that most of them have had to leave escapes them = Cog Diss writ large on their foreheads for all to see.

http://www.thebottomhalf.com/

Don't pay money to sign up though, lol! Put it in Fred's tip jar on the way out instead.
Posted by: rhodesiafever   2006-12-17 11:02  

#7  I also note the fact that a great many "White Farmers" were killed, just somehow slipped notice of the writer.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-12-17 10:32  

#6  Flora Buka, said the government had received more than 200 applications so far from whites to take up farming again.

I sincerely hope these 200 "Applicants" are returning just long enough to salvage what's left of their property.
Cash oe valuables stashed in the Garden perhaps?
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-12-17 10:10  

#5  Idiots,
He's stabbed you in the back once already, didn't you learn from the experience?
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-12-17 10:07  

#4  "mmmm Farmers, the other white meat"
Posted by: Frank G   2006-12-17 09:59  

#3  Truly the triumph of hope over experience. Sad.
Posted by: Mark Z   2006-12-17 09:54  

#2  I think the Rhodesian whites have proven themselves to be utterly naive. They have no pattern recognition whatsoever, and even if Bob ordered 99 out of 100 of them to be butchered, the survivor would think he was spared because Bob liked him, and Bob would never hurt him.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-12-17 08:11  

#1  The farmers who are returning are either real dreamers, or Mugabe is fronting them a lot of cash. I have a solution to Mugabe's problems. Import a million Chinese immigrants to get the place running again. He can always expropriate their property and deport them once they've fixed things up.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2006-12-17 07:50  

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