Without farm title deeds, banks are still saying no to Zimbabwe’s farmers
MUTARE — Charles Samuriwo, a farmer from the Odzi area north west of Mutare city, cannot hide his frustration.As a beneficiary of Zimbabwe’s controversial programme to redistribute land taken from white farmers, Samuriwo has been working his tobacco farm since 2001.Today he is struggling because 15 years after taking over the farm, he still has no security of tenure or title deed.Without such collateral, he cannot borrow from a bank to buy machinery or pay for seasonal expenses such as seeds or fertiliser."As farmers, we have nothing but the land," Samuriwo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation."Financial institutions need a form of security for them to lend us money. We want to invest in irrigation but without financial support we are not able to do that." His fears for the future have grown amid the severe, prolonged drought induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon that has hit Southern Africa hard.The worst drought to hit Zimbabwe in two decades has left many rural areas in the gr...
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