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World Bank Gives Zimbabwe $74 Million To Revitalize Agriculture

Written by News One on October 1, 2009 4:00 pm

zimbabwean-farmer

HARARE — The World Bank on Wednesday announced a 74-million-dollar grant to revive Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector.

“The money is 74 million dollars up from 25 million last year,” David Rohrbach, a senior agricultural economist at the World Bank, told reporters on the sidelines of an agriculture conference in the capital Harare.

The bank hopes the money will help 700,000 farmers, said Rohrbach.

RELATED: EU Will Continue Sanctions Against Zimbabwe

“We are dealing directly with NGOs. We are following suit with what other donors have done to help Zimbabwe. We are not yet at a stage to deal with government directly but we consult them,” he said.

The announcement came as a new report — prepared for the conference by donors and the government — said compensation had been paid for about three percent of the 6,500 white-owned farms seized under Mugabe’s land reforms.

The study said land reforms had drastically reduced the area of land under cultivation by 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) and lands under irrigation also declined more than nine percent to 139,500 hectares.

Mugabe launched the land reforms in 2000, with at least 4,000 white farmers forcibly removed from their properties. He has defended the programme as meant to correct colonial-era imbalances.

RELATED: Zimbabwe Faces Bleak Christmas Amid Food Crisis

Black farmers resettled on the land have received little government support, while banks have been unwilling to offer them loans without legal guarantees on ownership of the land.

Production of both food and cash crops like tobacco have plunged, leaving millions of people dependent on international food aid.

Secretary for agriculture Ngoni Masoka told a media briefing at the predicted a jump in crop production this year.

“This year the preparations are much more advanced compared to last year,” he said. “Even in terms of funding, this year we are better prepared.

Mugabe in February joined former rival Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister, in a unity government tasked with returning Zimbabwe to stability after years of economic ruin.

Tags: Economy, Zimbabwe
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  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Da_J_Rok/ Da_J_Rok

    Grow some cannibus… its popular these days

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Mrbrmann225/ Mrbrmann225

    This has so many holes in it. This is how the 1% of rich keep Blacks in debt
    for years and generations to come, they (Rothschilds, Rockafellars,etc.) they give developing countries these big that they know that can’t pay back and at high interest and when they or we as Blacks whether here in the U.S. or Africa can’t pay it back they would take our land, the one thing that is considered true wealth. Think about when you get a loan, how high the interest rate is, and people in Zimbabwe are so busy fighting amongst themselves that they don’t even see how they are getting the wood without no
    KY, and that problem exist for blacks everywhere, we fight amongst ourselves
    and their just waiting for the right time to strike, I mean look at how many
    people are interested in this article.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/jazzpast/ jazzpast

    Zimbabwe has food crisis because the agriculture they produce are ship to england. That’s where England get their food supply yet our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe are going thru starvation and economic inflation.now you have the world bank and the IMF are creating a bigger deficit and hardships.we need to invest in the continent and help them be truly independent from neo-colonialization.
    Grandmaster Teacher Marcus Garvey warned us regarding this contemporary enslavement.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/armandx99/ armandx99

    Nah…..Mugabe, as messed up as he is, is a modern day Nat Turner, who subjected a mass number of whites to the same social injustices some or our forebearers had to experience. The only difference was that he was more successful. However, instead of zimbabwe establishing itself as a power structure, it remained dependent on foreign commerce, ultimately suffering the backlash of Caucasian world’s disdain. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe, Haiti, and any other predominantly Black/African country has been overlooked unless it could provide some military advantage to a world power, including us. You can’t tell me that we could have a Disney facility in France, but not in Haiti, in our own front yard.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Da_J_Rok/ Da_J_Rok

    The currency is no value, France got Euro’s, they dollar value exceeds ours by almost .50 cents. Rich Nigga’s need to set they family up and start looking and investing in growth for all our kind, its to much popularity going on these days, thats why I aint star struck, I am more impressed with a broke braniac then a million dollar fool

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