The farms, covering at least 480,000 acres, would be redistributed to people still waiting for land, said John Nkomo, minister of special affairs in President Robert Mugabe's office.

Mugabe's government has confiscated more than 5,000 white-owned farms for redistribution to impoverished blacks since 2000.

However, many prime properties have gone to government ministers, top ruling party officials, military officers and their cronies.

Some ministers and ruling party officials have acquired more than one farm, despite a government promise to enforce a "one man one farm" policy.

The often-violent seizures and subsequent mismanagement have crippled the agriculture-based economy and helped plunge the nation into its worst political and economic crisis since 1980.

Mugabe says the land reform program is an effort to correct colonial era imbalances that gave much of the country's most productive land to the descendants of British, South African and other white settlers.

Critics say Mugabe, who lead Zimbabwe to independence from Britain in 1980, has used the program to shore up flagging support in the face of burgeoning political opposition.