About 20 white Zimbabwean farmers evicted from their land have been allowed to settle in neighbouring Mozambique.

We doubt there is any idle land which the kindly deputy minister might allocate to the beleaguered white farmers

Malawi's Daily Times newspaper

The farmers, who are being removed from their properties under President Robert Mugabe's land resettlement programme, have received permission to settle in Mozambique's central Manica province.

An estimated 2,900 white farmers have been told to leave their land this month by the Zimbabwean Government.

Some Zimbabwean farmers are looking to Mozambique for a future on the land, while others have approached Botswana and a Malawian politician has said they could consider his country if they want to leave Zimbabwe.

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Botswana's Government has said there is not enough farming land available to allocate to Zimbabweans who want to move there.

But a farmers' organisation in the country has said that joint ventures with Batswana farmers could be a possibility.

Lease land

Mozambique's Deputy Agriculture Minister Joao Carilho says that about 20 farmers have been allowed to move to Mozambique and "many more" have applied for farmland, according to the French news agency AFP.

He said that the government is examining all requests very carefully to make sure that rational use is made of fertile land.

Mozambique wants Zimbabwean farmers to settle there

The land will be leased to farmers, he said, as all land in Mozambique belongs to the state and cannot be sold.

Mozambique has an estimated 36 million hectares of farmland but only about 4 million are currently being utilised, according to AFP.

Malawi split over farmers

A Malawian minister has suggested that white farmers evicted from their land in Zimbabwe could move to his country to help develop agriculture there.

Andrew Chioza, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, said Malawi could benefit from investment that the farmers could bring and that there was great potential in the lower Shire valley.

But his comments brought opposition from the Daily Times newspaper.

The newspaper said that there was already pressure on land in Malawi, with landless Malawians asking for farms on which to settle.

"From the look of things, we doubt there is any idle land which the kindly deputy minister might allocate to the beleaguered white farmers," the paper concluded.

Joint ventures

Botswana's Agriculture Ministry has turned away Zimbabwean farmers seeking land there, according to London's Financial Times newspaper.

The ministry's permanent secretary, Masego Mpathi, said that he had met a delegation of 17 farmers but had had to turn down their request.

Many white-owned farms have been invaded in the past two years

"The constraint is land. We do not have any to allocate to them."

However, the Botswana Agriculture Union's Chief Executive, Bowetswe Masilo, told AFP that the farmers should be encouraged to go to Botswana to invest in agriculture.

"The best thing they could do is to try to form joint ventures with the local farmers. And that would greatly benefit the agricultural sector in the country," he said.

According to the Financial Times, some white Zimbabweans have already settled in Zambia and a few are in Uganda.