The government intends to repossess idle land tracts that are not being used for any economic activities and offering to landless farmers, the deputy minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, George Simbachawene has announced.
Officiating the workshop to mark International Peasants day that was organised by the National Network of farmers Groups in Tanzania (MVIWATA) in Morogoro Region, he said Tanzania has vast areas of undeveloped farmland held by ‘investors’.
MVIWATA held a workshop to commemorate International Day of Peasants Struggle and International Year of Family Farming on April 16,2014.
Every April 17, the world remembers massacre of 19 peasants who were struggling for land and justice in Brazil in 1996.
In his speech, Mr Simbachawene said “we have already started legal procedures to see how this exercise will be carried out. Our aim is to give idle land to farmers who need it most.”
He went on to say that, despite the process, it would be better if investors owning huge undeveloped pieces of land to willfully surrender it to government authorities so as to enable more poorer farmers to engage in agricultural activities.
According to him, there are some land owners who misuse their rights of occupancy by sub-letting farms to smallholder farmers at exorbitant rates of fees.
“This is not acceptable, we will repossess the land and give it back to farmers because it is their constitutional right,” he stressed.
He also urged district councils to increase their budget on land survey so as to reduce unnecessary conflicts between farmers and pastoralists centered about land borders.
“I hereby order land surveyors to perform their jobs with due diligence despite the limited financial resources within their areas of jurisdiction,” he said.
Speaking at the same event, the Board Chairman of MVIWATA, Habib Simbamkuti, commended the government for that move saying it was timely and asked for speedy implementation.
“We ask the government to do it quickly because there are many peasants countrywide who do not have land at all,” he said.
He also urged the government to survey all village land in the country and provide owners certificates of occupancy and title deeds to reduce the escalating land conflicts.
He said ongoing land disputes between farmers and investors are caused by lack of title deeds.
“Tanzania has done little in surveying its 12,000 villages and this has resulted in conflicts. Statistics shows that only one per cent of village land is surveyed. ” he added.
An interviewed small scale farmer Ashura Salehe, from Kisarawe district in Coast Region, was of the view that the government should do more to prevent land grabbing.
She said women and children are the main victims as the government promotes investment by medium-scale farmers and sidelines small-scale farmers.
“The government has forgotten about women who makes huge portion of smallholder farmers. The only way out is to come together and say no to any form of land grabbing, she said.
She added that there was a need for the institutes like MVIWATA to add efforts to educate more people especially village leaders on existing land laws and rights so as they can protect their land before giving it away to dubious investors.
“Most of us sign agreements to give our only pieces of land to the so-called investors without understanding the future effects to our community,” she added.
Every year, MVIWATA joins other institutes to mark the International Day of Peasants to invoke solidarity around the world in the defense of smallholder producers working for social justice and the right to grow food for their families and communities.
