to dump on

[giuly90]

Dear teachers,

I don't understand the meaning of this verb in the following context:

"Mugabe's government suddenly started seizing all white-owned commercial agricultural land in 2000. African settlers were being dumped on the land without required government support (including seed, water, and fertilizer). This chaotic land reform is causing massive declines in food production, and millions of Zimbabweans are at risk of famine".

Thank you for your help,

G.

 

[Raymott]

Dear teachers,

I don't understand the meaning of this verb in the following context:

"Mugabe's government suddenly started seizing all white-owned commercial agricultural land in 2000. African settlers were being dumped on the land without required government support (including seed, water, and fertilizer). This chaotic land reform is causing massive declines in food production, and millions of Zimbabweans are at risk of famine".

Thank you for your help,

G.

You can read it almost literally. Black people who have never run farms before are being taken from cities, and trucked onto the farms formerly owned by whites, and told, "Here is your land. Farm it."
Perhaps you're confused by the term "settlers". I think they only become settlers after they're dumped on the land, so the sentence could have been expressed better.
(It's not a phrasal verb. It's "to dump" followed by a prepositional phrase.)