TIMOTHY BURKE REPORTS THAT at least one South African politician thinks that South Africa should look to Zimbabwe for lessons on how to give their land reform “oomph”. Oomph is certainly one way of putting it:

The government’s land redistribution policy, which led to the invasion of the country’s white-owned farms in the past few years, has contributed to the economic catastrophe that now grips Zimbabwe. On top of a drought and the devastation of HIV/AIDS, the land grab has made food production plummet. The UN’s World Food Programme reckons that 3m-4m people will need food aid this year. Cooking oil, sugar and Zimbabweans’ staple maize porridge have become very hard to come by in Harare, harder still in the countryside. Unemployment is probably over 70%; inflation, at last count, was 129%. There is not enough foreign exchange to cover basic imports. Long lines of cars wait in front of petrol stations rumoured to be expecting a delivery.

According to Peter Kagwanja, Southern Africa director of the International Crisis Group, which focuses on conflict prevention, pushing people out of the cities has several advantages from the government’s perspective. Reviving agriculture cannot be done without labour, and most of it left the countryside as commercial farming collapsed. So far, only a fraction of occupied land has been put to good use. Without more labour, even subsistence agriculture cannot pick up. The governor of the central bank, Gideon Gono, has suggested that “progressive-minded” white farmers should come back and work in selected sectors, such as horticulture and dairy farming. But as many were driven off their farms in the first place, that offer may have limited allure. The ruling party has recently talked of amending the constitution to end private land ownership altogether.