ALTHOUGH most small holder farmers have benefitted significantly from the Land Reform Programme, more attention needs to be paid to the use and acquisition of A2 farmers.
What is self evident is that the programme has eased unemployment levels as young farmers are benefitting financially especially from tabacco.
The country’s maize production from A1 farms has also been remarkable.
With more favourable rain seasons the sky is likely to be the limit.
Even research by renowned British academic Professor Scoones , acknowledges the success of small holder farms following the Land Reform Programme.
American tycoon Bill Gates is also convinced that the small holder plot model is the right way to go in developing countries.
However, the picture is less rosy with A2 farmers.
Addressing thousands of Catholics who attended Kutama Mission centenary recently President Mugabe bemoaned the under utilisation of land by some A2 farmers, who seem more interested in viewing their possessions as a ‘status symbol’.
Surely going back to the feudal era where it was fashionable to let the land lie fallow when hundreds are still land hungry is unacceptable.
There is therefore need for an audit specifically to verify how those allocated A2 farms are using their land.
Reducing under utilised large farms to small holder plots for the benefit of those still land hungry will no doubt have a national positive effect on both employment and food security.
Having vast tracts of land one is unable to use leads to speculative tendencies.
Elsewhere in this edition we carry a story of how some land barons in Mozambique are leasing their land to foreign investors at the expense of hungry indigenes.
These foreign investors are more interested in growing crops for export, with no consideration for feeding the local hungry people.
And to make matters worse these foreign investors are using land which is supposed to be used by the rural poor who depend on subsistence farming for survival.
That is why there is an urgent need to physically find out how each and everyone is using the piece of land they were allocated.
There is another aspect of land related to distribution which is very disturbing.
In our lead story, we find out how a land audit on those who own land shows how 10-year-olds were allocated land, when only those over 21 years are supposed to be the beneficiaries.
This automatically shows there is a serious flaw in the process of allocation and distribution of land.
Surely a system which allowed former political bigwigs like Ray Kaukonde and Didymus Mutasa to own several farms they could rent to white farmers or donate to girlfriends at will has gaping loopholes.
That means a number of people on farms meant to alleviate the land hunger of hundreds of indigenes are not supposed to be anywhere near there.
More worrying are the number of cases which have been already reported by the media, some of which have spilled to courts, over dubious land allocation.
Hence the need for a thorough census which has to clear the mess.
We hope the final results of the land audit carried by the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement will be announced soon.
But what we expect more than the results is the immediate tidying up of the land allocation and distribution process.
The Land Reform Programme was meant for all Zimbabweans to benefit from their invaluable resource.
There should be no room for those with speculative tendencies.