Zimbabwe's farm workers are finding that they are no better off under the new black farmers that President Robert Mugabe is promoting in his radical land reform program, union officials and analysts say.
Five years after Mugabe's government began seizing land from white commercial farmers and handing it over to landless blacks, Zimbabwe's 300,000 farm laborers are struggling to eke out a living.
"Farm workers have always lived an exploited life, but because of the fast-track land reform program, their conditions have even worsened," says Gertrude Hambira, secretary general of the farm laborers union.
Only some two or three percent of the farm workers have been given land under the government scheme while many lost everything when the white farm owners left Zimbabwe, relocating to Britain and neighboring countries in southern Africa.
Of the 4,500 commercial farms that were the backbone of Zimbabwe's strong agricultural sector in 2000, only 600 remain in the hands of white owners while some 200,000 black farmers have been given land, according to government figures.
Before the land seizures, some 70 percent of the most fertile land in Zimbabwe was owned by white farmers who were mainly descendants of British settlers.
Once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe's agriculture production has plummeted, from providing 50 percent of all export earnings in 2000 to 11 percent at the end of 2003, according to a study by an independent consultant.
"Farm workers are the ones who have been badly affected by the land reforms. They have lost their homes. They have lost their only source of livelihood," says Hambira.
Workers themselves say they are getting better pay from the new farmers but that they have lost many of the benefits such as food and medical aid that helped them make ends meet.
"Former farmers used to subsidize food, offer lunch and drinks, but all that is history now. What the new farmers do is that they pay well, they pay better," said farm worker Simbarashe Donati from the KweKwe area of the Midlands province.
The study by independent consultant Tim Neill also noted that black farmers pay slightly more than the minimum wage but that a monthly salary equivalent to some US$12 per month still left laborers struggling below the poverty line.
"The farm workers on the A1 [small scale farms] are in extreme poverty now," said Neill in the study released late last year.
With jobs on farms still scarce, many laborers move from one farm to another in search of casual work, living in shacks on the outskirts of the property.
"People are suffering, some don't get salaries on time. At least whites used to have facilities to borrow from banks and pay us on time even when they did not have enough cash," said a tea plantation worker, who identified himself as Simango, from the eastern area of Mutare, bordering Mozambique.
On the campaign trail ahead of the March 31 parliamentary elections, Mugabe earlier this month expressed his disappointment with black farmers whom he said were not making full use of the land given to them.
Less than half -- 44 percent -- of the land now owned by the new black farmers is put to productive use, Mugabe lamented, adding that "the government will not hesitate" to redistribute the land.
Mugabe's land reform program has been partly blamed for food shortages in the country. The government earlier this month announced plans to buy food aid for 1.5 million needy Zimbabweans.
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