The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted a spokesperson for Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) as saying Mugabe issued the directive at a politburo meeting on Wednesday.
"President Mugabe said he would not allow people to have more than one farm," Nathan Shamuyarira told the Herald.
"He advised those with multiple farms to choose one and give up the rest to the government for resettlement," he added. The paper reported that Mugabe wanted the farms to be relinquished within two weeks.
Mugabe's government, which launched a fast-track programme of acquiring white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks in 2000, has been criticised for allowing ruling party members to take prime farms.
The 79-year-old Mugabe appointed a Land Review Committee earlier this year to investigate multiple farm ownership, among other tasks.
The Herald reported that Shamuyarira said Mugabe had made reference to a preliminary report by that committee "which indicated that a number of people in the party's top hierarchy had multiple farms".
Aid agencies say the land reform programme, which has seen the majority of Zimbabwe's 4,500 white farmers evicted from their land, has contributed to food shortages threatening 5,5-million Zimbabweans, or about half the population, with famine.
Last week the government appealed for 700 000 t of food aid to see the country through to the next harvest in 2004.
Renson Gasela, the shadow agriculture minister of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said that Mugabe's comments were calculated to pacify Zanu-PF critics.
"He knew all along there was some greediness from his people," said Gasela, adding that the directive would be difficult to enforce because most of those who had multiple farms had registered them under different names.
"At the end of the day only those with farms registered in their own names will be affected," he said.
Mugabe's land review committee was also asked to examine the impact of the land reform programme on the lives of the white farmers and their workers. Those findings are yet to be revealed.
In June the United Nations issued a report saying that 400 000 farm workers and their families had not benefited from the land reform exercise and many had been displaced from their homes.
And the white-run Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) earlier this month claimed thatevictions were continuing of the country's few remaining white farmers, including those whose land did not meet the criteria for seizure.
State media claim that so far more than 300 000 peasant farmers and 54 000 commercial farmers have been resettled on 11-million hectares of formerly white-owned land.
But recent government figures put the number at 210 000 and 14 880 respectively. – Sapa-AFP.
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