The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Zimbabwe says the rising disputes between miners and farmers are old and can be traced to the days of the British South Africa Company (BSA Company).
This is part of a raft of recommendations contained in its latest annual report.
“The disputes between miners and farmers are old and go right back to the days of the British South Africa Company, but with more intensive farming and the conversion of much private land to State land leased out or allocated to individuals the problems can become worse,” it said.
“Mineral rights in Zimbabwe were first owned by the BSA Company, which acquired them admittedly by deceit and conquest, and were then bought early in the days of the Responsible Government by the Government of Southern Rhodesia in what is generally agreed to have been a first class investment.”
With agriculture in Zimbabwe built either on communal land or on offer letters for state land, the commission has a point that we need to find solutions.
The idea that a valuable mine should have priority over farming is sensible, since a decent mine will produce far more wealth from its few hectares than any farming operation, but in the modern age this means the farmer, if they are to move, needs not just compensation, but also suitable new land for farming.
There are other investment inroads into farming, again making excellent sense nationally and even locally, but requiring people to move.
There will be need for two sets of negotiations, one with the community as a whole ensuring they get the employment priority and other benefits, and one with the small fraction who have to be given a new farm.
The commission said one approach to the legal changes is to have a standard process that can be applied, each point ticked off, so that the farmer is not cheated and can continue farming, even if they have to move.
For practical reasons this means that the new farm, as close as possible to the old and definitely within the same community, needs to be allocated and the new house built before the farmer leaves the old place. It is no longer possible to sell the old place and buy a new farm with the compensation; the new farm needs to physically exist first.
In the old days with more temporary housing and plenty of land moving was not that major an operation. Now a family may have spent a decade building a reasonable house, burning bricks and the like, and cannot suddenly build a new one in a couple of months, especially when they have a farm to run. So new systems are needed.
This can be sorted out reasonably easily. The mining authorities need to be closely linked to the lands and agriculture authorities once prospecting, which can be carried out on a working farm, moves to production, which will disrupt or end farming activities. Once the farmer can be shown the new land, and has seen the new buildings, they will be less despondent over the switch.
The commission said there are other investments in infrastructure and operations coming up that involve farming, starting with irrigation schemes and plantation crops. A dam floods someone’s home; irrigation plots are generally smaller than ordinary farms because they are so much more productive; plantation schemes can transform an area and a community for the better but need to be agreed.
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