Bad theories starve people

(Hat tip: Jerry Pournelle.)

Robert Mugabe decided to ring in the new millennium by seizing farms from their white owners and turning them over to blacks.

Mr Mugabe said this was the price that Zimbabwe would have to pay to redress the wrongs of the British colonial era, which left much of the best land in white hands. He claimed that the seizures would boost production and benefit millions of blacks.

Now he admits that five ninths of that land is lying fallow.

Some 10.4 million acres were seized under a scheme designed to create a new class of black commercial farmer. By Mr Mugabe's figures, 5.8 million acres are lying fallow.

The theory under which Mr. Mugabe operated, and under which he was able to buy votes, farms were in the hands of white farmers only because of historical iniquities. If the land were turned over to blacks, they would be just as able to "take advantage of their fortune" and farm as successfully as whites could.

Since the new "owners" of the land don't have the experience and training the people they displaced do, they don't do nearly as well in farming the land. As a result, they're not growing enough to meet the country's needs.

It takes more than just sitting on a patch of fertile ground to make someone a farmer.