4,000 farms on Mugabe list

Harare - Zimbabwe's government has targeted at least 75 per cent of the nation's mostly white-owned commercial farms for its …

Harare - Zimbabwe's government has targeted at least 75 per cent of the nation's mostly white-owned commercial farms for its controversial land reforms, after identifying 1,453 more farms yesterday.

The latest lists bring the total number of farms earmarked for resettlement to more than 4,000, and farming officials estimated that 75 per cent of white farmers have had their property listed. Zimbabwe has about 5,500 commercial farms.

President Robert Mugabe had announced last year that his government would take about half that land to resettle with black farmers in order to redress colonial-era inequalities in land ownership.