Posted on 11/10/2005 1:02:41 PM PST by shield
GOVERNMENT is next week expected to sign an agricultural agreement with China that could see vast tracts of land being ceded to the fast-growing nation.
The deal, envisaged to boost agricultural production, should be signed on November 8 and will be guaranteed by the Ministry of Finance.
The deal will be in two phases. The first component is a direct government-to-government agreement while the other has an element of private sector participation.
Government is expected to enlist private sector participation under the Zimbabwe Development Company, represented by Zimbabwe Farmers Union vice-president Edward Raradza.
Government-owned China State Farms Agribusiness Corporation and the ZDC are set to sign the partnership agreement early next week, aimed at reviving several derelict former white farms that were taken over by the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority.
The loss-making quasi-government agricultural arm acquired about 20 estates during the land reform programme. Among the expropriated estates where joint ventures are expected to be undertaken are Kondozi Farm, now lying derelict in the Odzi area of Manicaland, Foyle Estate in the rich Mazowe valley, Charter Estate in the Beatrice area, Greaslee in the Goromonzi district, Charleswood Estate, taken from former MDC MP Roy Bennett in Chimanimani, Bosbury and Essex in Mashonaland West.
Reserve Bank authorities have been advocating the promotion of ventures between new farmers, former operators as well as new investors to increase productivity and hasten skills transfer.
Agriculture minister Joseph Made confirmed that there were a number of initiatives taking place. These initiatives, he said, are on an individual company basis while others were joint-venture agreements between the two countries.
"There are various private sector initiatives which will be represented by Edward Raradza of Farmers World and others," Made said. Farmers World is mainly engaged in the sale of farm inputs.
"Government projects will be guaranteed by the Ministry of Finance. Everything is being handled by them."
Yesterday, Raradza confirmed the deal but refused to give further details on the proposed agreement saying: "Why are you in a rush? Just wait for next week."
Government's chaotic land reform programme that involved the forcible take over of white-owned commercial farms to "correct colonial land ownership imbalances" has been a recipe for disaster. It has reduced Zimbabwe from a net grain exporter to a net importer in a space of five years.
Agricultural production levels dropped sharply as commercial farmers took their skills to countries as far flung as Nigeria, Zambia and Mozambique.
China appears to be every where. Communist supporting communist.
Outsourcing agriculture.
I thought Jesse said there are already too many Asians taking up "Black Businesses"?
Here's something for Zimbabweans to look into as they continue their descent into genocide and cannibalism, the final fruits of socialism.
http://www.eathufu.com/home.asp
There are already a lot of Chinese engineers in Africa. Now, here come the farmers.
Don't worry. If the Chinese make it work, the Zimbabweans will shoot them and take back the land.
I don't think so. These will be Chicom state owned enterprises and when they say jump Mugabe will say 'how high?'.
The Chinese as the whites will make it work. Those communist stick together. One day Zim will be a chinese country with very few blacks left.
China is sending slave labor to Africa to take over the work on former white-owned farms?
Or am I reading too much into this?
It is more likely to work the other way. The Bantu in Rhodesia enjoyed a very benign White presence; one which provided them with Hospitals and Schools, and stopped the tribal slaughter, causing the population explosion since. The Chinese will not likely provide the like, and may very well embrace genocide at some future time. While Chinese "Communism" has definitely moved to the right economically fpor utilitarian rather than moral reasons, there is no evidence that they have become more humanitarian or any less ruthless than was Chairman Mao, whose original revolution killed many tens of millions of Chinese.
The idea that they would be more tolerant of another race is absurd.
So the net effect will be to replace the white farmers with yellow ones?
Slave labor? Communist do employ labor of this nature. Are those slaves Chinese?
Euro 'colony' supplanted by ChiCom colony.
Jesse and Robert (Mugabe) are both fools. Dangerous, influential fools.
Then the idiots will starve again.
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I don't think the Chinese would put up with that.
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