The end of an era for Zimbabwe’s last white farmers?

Driving through land his family have tended for half a century, Colin Cloete stops to inspect a harvested tobacco field, rows of green stumps sprouting from a terracotta soil.

As a seasoned professional farmer, he knows the field needs to be reploughed before pests infest the weedy growths left behind. As a tired political campaigner, however, he knows it is no longer worth his while.

“We should be replanting these fields now, but I don’t know who is going to benefit from the next harvest,” he says, shaking his head. “I will probably do it anyway, but I do wonder whether it’s worth it.”

After an 11-year struggle in which their ranks have been murdered, beaten, jailed and bankrupted, the last of Zimbabwe’s white farmers are finally facing defeat in their efforts to resist President Robert Mugabe’s land-grab programme.

Telegraph

Tags: farmers, land grab, president robert mugabe, struggle, Zimbabwe

Category: Featured, Police State/Abuse, South Africa/Zimbabwe