Zimbabwe seizes farmers' tractors

Very few farms remain white-owned

Zimbabwe has started to distribute white-owned farm machinery to black farmers who have been given their land.

The government said it had "acquired 140 tractors, seven combine harvesters... and 3,262 irrigation pipes" under rules introduced last year.

President Robert Mugabe speeded up his controversial land reform programme in 2000, seizing 90% of white-owned land.

Critics say the programme has caused food shortages, with more than half of the population going hungry.

Mr Mugabe denies that the land reform programme has led to food shortages, blaming years of poor rains.

In 2000, some 4,500 white farmers owned much of Zimbabwe's best farm-land. Now, just 400 remain on 3% of the land, the government says.

'Daylight robbery'

A presidential decree last December said that owners who sold, damaged or immobilised their machinery face an equivalent fine or up to two years imprisonment.

More than half of all Zimbabweans need food aid

"This equipment is owned by former commercial farmers who are largely hostile and unsupportive to the land reform programme," said Lands Minister John Nkomo.

When the decree was passed, farmers' representative John Worsely-Worswick called it "daylight robbery".

"It is suddenly a crime to have a piece of equipment you cannot use because you have been forced off your farm."

Although the government said it would pay compensation for all farm machinery, Mr Worsely-Worswick said owners of such equipment were sceptical because the government had yet to compensate for the seized farms.

He said the decree violated constitutional rights of ownership.