Zimbabwe is no suddenly offering land to white farmers who had their property seized under President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme. Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said any Zimbabwean can apply for land and that farms would be allocated on long leases, according to the BBC. But he said that farmers would not necessarily get back land they lost. Critics say the reforms have devastated Zimbabwe’s agriculture-based economy and led to massive food shortages. Last Friday, the Commercial Farmers’ Union said 200 white farmers had applied for land over the past 2 weeks. In 2000, there were 4,000 white farmers working on much of the best land. Just 300 remain after a campaign of often violent land seizures. The Zimbabwe government is portraying white farmers as having finally come to their senses, accepting that they cannot resist Mr Mugabe’s land reform programme. "They are begging us for land," Mr Matonga told the BBC. But analysts say hard facts have driven this policy U-turn. By confiscating the white-owned commercial farms, the government transformed a country that was once the breadbasket of Southern Africa into a net food importer.