Zimbabwean government calls white farmers 'irrelevant'

The government today described Zimbabwe’s remaining white farmers as irrelevant and rejected their pleas for a truce on land seizures.

Agriculture Minister Joseph Made defended land reform policies that have seen thousands of white-owned farms nationalised for redistribution to black Zimbabweans since 2000.

“The country’s land policies are very sound and will not be frozen or set aside,” Made said in a statement to the state media.

The government’s response came after the white-run Commercial Farmers Union, representing a few hundred whites still on their land, called for a halt to farming disruptions and promised to work with the government to restore the nation as a regional breadbasket.