Zimbabwe To Return Seized Farms

Zimbabwe to Return Seized Farms and Pay Compensation to Foreign Landowners ZIMBABWE Zimbabwe Zimbabwe said this week it will return 67 foreign-owned farms and pay $146 million in compensation to landowners whose properties were seized during its land reform program more than two decades ago. Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka told lawmakers that the agreement settles claims involving property owners from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia. He added that the government would also return 840 affected farms owned by Black farmers and around 400 owned by white farmers. The move stems from Zimbabwe’s violent land redistribution campaign launched in 2000 under then-President Robert Mugabe. Seeking to strengthen political support, Mugabe encouraged Black subsistence farmers and youths to seize land from white commercial farmers, describing the policy as a correction of colonial-era injustices. The seizures turned violent, with several white farmers and hundreds of their workers killed, while around 4,000 commercial farmers were forced off their land. The land reform program triggered international sanctions against Zimbabwe and severely damaged investor confidence. It also contributed to the collapse of the country’s commercial agriculture sector, sharp declines in food production and years of hyperinflation. In 2020, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration agreed to pay $3.5 billion in compensation to white farmers in an attempt to restore relations with international creditors and regain access to global capital markets. But authorities later revised the compensation plan to include dollar-denominated bonds as part of the payout package, though many farmers rejected the new terms.