Zimbabwe's Agriculture Minister Joseph Made has significantly increased the amount of white-owned farmland the government plans to redistribute to blacks.
Mr Made told the mainly white Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) today that the government would take 8.3 million hectares (20 million acres) rather than the five million previously identified for compulsory acquisition.
Mr Made also warned white farmers not to clash with war veterans and black peasants who have occupied their properties since February 2000, after President Robert Mugabe's government passed legislation protecting the occupiers.
"Government intends and is going to address the issues of social and political injustice as far as the land question is concerned. No less than 8.3 million hectares will be acquired from the purposes of resettlement," MrMade told the CFU annual congress.
The government had previously targeted 5,000 farms totalling five million hectares of the 12 million hectares (30 million acres) held by white farmers for redistribution to landless blacks.
Mr Made did not say why the government had raised the target.