Evicted Zimbabwean Farmers Arrive Kwara ...to Begin Commercial Farming, 2005

Source from:  Vanguard (Lagos) 01/04/2005

A GROUP of white Zimbabwean farmers forced from their lands by the president, Robert Mugabe, have arrived in Nigeria to establish new farms. The Zimbabweans' move to Nigeria follows a vigorous courtship by President Olusegun Obasanjo and the governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki, who wants the men hounded by Mr. Mugabe to kick-start commercial agriculture in Nigeria. Mr. Saraki said he wants another 200 Zimbabwean farmers to follow the pioneers because Nigeria, despite its abundant land, is spending more than £1.6 billion each year on importing 98 per cent of its basic food needs, which could be produced domestically. Hundreds of white farmers have left Zimbabwe in the wake of Mr. Mugabe's land confiscation strategy, leaving farms idle and creating huge food shortages in a country once known as the breadbasket of Africa. Many have moved successfully to neighbouring Zambia and Mozambique, but the 15 who arrived in Nigeria are the first to take their skills 2,000 miles across the continent to a country whose economy is based on revenues from its oil reserves. The farmers, led by Alan Jack, whose Zimbabwean tobacco and maize farm was forcefully occupied four years ago by so-called war veterans loyal to Mr. Mugabe, have each been allocated 1,000 hectares of Nigerian bush. They have also been given a derelict sugar refinery and estate which once supported a community of 20,000 people to rehabilitate. Mr. Jack, 46, had been planning to leave Africa for good when he was invited earlier this year to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to meet Mr. Obasanjo and listen to the head of state's proposal for a pioneering Zimbabwean farming enterprise in Kwara, western Nigeria. "Why leave Africa and go to Australia?" Mr. Obasanjo asked. "We do not want to take away what is good for Zimbabwe from Zimbabwe, but I believe that it is in the best interests of Africa that you do not leave this continent. The more of you who come (to Nigeria) the better." Kwara itself has no oil reserves, which inspired Mr. Saraki to spearhead a national drive to wean Nigeria off oil-based revenues - totaling more than £200 billion over the past 40 years - and make it self- sufficient in food. Mr. Jack's team will this week mark out their new farms, which have already been mapped by satellite images. They will begin farming in the New Year, using Niger river water to irrigate maize, rice, sugar, cotton, soya, citrus, cowpeas and fodder crops for Nigeria's first modern dairy industry. Mr. Jack insisted the land they farm be virgin bush, not soil already cultivated by local people. "We know what it feels like to be kicked off farms," he said. "If the same was to have happened to the local Nigerians the project would fail because we would get a bad name locally and internationally." He said he was excited to be a pioneer commercial farmer in Nigeria. "We reckon that with our know-how, we can triple or quadruple yields of crops like maize and soya. "This has given me an entirely new incentive. There was no chance any more of farming in Zimbabwe, where I've been under siege in my farmhouse for the past four years." Asked about Nigeria"s reputation for violence and corruption, he said: "There are risks in all businesses. But the governor and the president are right behind us. They're very switched-on." Enditem