“Those who own several farms, or those whose farms are abandoned, expose themselves to expropriation,” he announced.
"The land thus released will be redistributed to novice farmers, who are on a waiting list established since the last reforms," he added.
"Zimbabwe does not have unlimited arable land," he argued.
“99% of the land is already occupied, and that which we distribute to farmers on the waiting list is taken from blacks, to be redistributed to blacks”.
In 2000, former President Robert Mugabe had the country's white farmers forcibly expropriated in order to redistribute their land to black farmers.
This decision aimed to repair the inequalities resulting from British colonization, but in fact, those close to power had largely benefited from this redistribution.
The new owners, poorly trained and poorly equipped, had left large swathes of arable land abandoned and the country now suffered from chronic food shortages.
After the fall of Robert Mugabe in 2017, his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa had adopted a reformist discourse and promised to heal the wounds of agrarian reforms, even to compensate expropriated farmers.
Some white farmers have already been allowed to reclaim land through local partnerships, Musaka said.
"There are no specific criteria," Vangelis Haritatos, deputy minister of agriculture, told AFP.
"What we want is a fair system for the greatest number."
"We want to achieve food self-sufficiency," Haritatos said.
According to the Famine Early Warning Network, around 10 million Zimbabweans, or two-thirds of the population, are at risk of hunger after a disappointing rainy season.
Zimbabwe is heavily dependent on donors for its food supplies.
© 2022 AFP