Don McGhie sweeps his hand over Rock Farm, with its fields of tobacco, maize, passion fruit and paprika, and says: "Leave this? I've never thought of leaving."But his words betray worries about the government's plans to confiscate white-owned farms like his, and he adds: "Well, I'm getting on. My sons can decide for themselves."Under international pressure, President Robert Mugabe may water down his controversial proposal to compulsorily acquire 1,500 mostly white-owned farms without compensation. But in a country hit by growing insecurity, food riots and an economic tailspin, the future for Zimbabwe's white tribe is looking decidedly shaky.Once they numbered 280,000. Now there are about 80,000 whites, 1 per cent of the population. Yet, almost 20 years after independence, they still control almost half the country's land. And on the flat, fertile plains south of the capital Harare, huge whiteowned farms stretch for miles in every direction.At Norton, McGhie farms 3,000 acres, while two sons run their own large farms nearby. In this part of Africa, it's as though the age of empire had never ended. The whites have their golf courses and social clubs; the blacks work as farm-hands and domestic staff. The two groups never mix socially."We still have the colonial habits - servants and all that," McGhie says.Tall and tanned, he has a face lined by the years but his hands are smooth. His is a "managerial" method of farming, with all the physical work done by up to 400 local workers for wages of about £20 a month.The white farmers in this part of Africa are acknowledged as among the most resourceful in the world. They have overcome huge odds - distance, climate, disease - to sell their produce in supermarkets in Ireland and other Western countries. Zimbabwe's land question comes down to the choice: should this efficiency be sacrificed in the name of justice, in a country where 70 per cent of the population are peasants without any land to their name?Last week, McGhie was about to send a bumper £500,000 tobacco crop for auction. At the same time, he exports 2.5 tonnes of passion fruit a week to Europe. He has dammed his water supply to alleviate the effects of drought and installed irrigation systems throughout the farm. Everything, from the stems of the tobacco plants to the leaves of fruit trees, is recycled or sold.He says the process of "designating" his farm for compulsory purchase was "a shambles" which failed to take account of local conditions. The consequences for the 2,000 or so workers and their families who currently depend on Rock Farm for their livelihood could be horrific."The whole thing is just a grab. It's supposed to be for the communal farmers, but the land would probably end up in the hands of the politicians. The poor old African would probably be just the same as before, cultivating the soil with a hand-hoe."The writer Doris Lessing calls it "the monologue" - when the whites slip into rant mode. It does not come easily to McGhie's gentle nature, but eventually he too succumbs: the government is "basically communists"; the health system is "a disaster"; education is "wrecked"; the phone system is "forever going wrong".Notions of racial superiority have always run deep in these parts, and the government's failed efforts to promote commercial black agriculture has done little to change such views.Clutching a large, red paprika, McGhie exclaims: "There's no way an African could grow this. I'm not a racist but bright Africans who want to get ahead enter business, what with the advantages indigenous firms enjoy. The ones who stay here are not up to running a big farm."A neighbour, Johnny Riley, took over the family farm in 1979, just before independence. "We were all thinking of leaving, but Mugabe came and said there wasn't going to be a land grab so we decided to stay. It hasn't been too bad since, but things are getting worse now."Riley admits he would think of moving if he was made the right offer. "I'm a third generation Zimbabwean and I certainly don't want to go anywhere else. There isn't any racial nonsense in this country at all. It's only the government that hates whites. But now we're asking ourselves what our future here is." Gesturing towards his two children stretched out in front of the television, he adds: "We have to do the best for them."