adminFarming Correspondent
AS the tobacco selling season opens next month, Boka Sales Floors chief executive officer Ms Rudo Boka has urged tobacco farmers to watch against dubious tobacco buyers who target farmers from rural areas and defraud them of their hard-earned money. Speaking at a tobacco farmers’ forum recently, Ms Boka said farmers should deal with registered tobacco sales floors to avoid mishaps.
Said Boka: “Farmers are the main targets of fraudsters especially in the marketing season. If you want to be safe, just follow instructions from registered tobacco sales floors. If your crop is rejected as poor, do not try second opinions from other people around the floors because these are the same people who will dupe you. Our theme for this year is: ‘Don’t be corrupt, just be compliant’. Let us run with it together.”
She, however, lamented the decline in quality of tobacco from farmers despite the increasing number of farmers taking up farming of the golden leaf.
“Zimbabwean tobacco makes up 8 percent of the world’s cigarettes and that shows that we have a lot of diligent work to do as tobacco farmers. Instead of having better quality tobacco now that more farmers are embarking on tobacco farming, the quality of our golden leaf has declined notably and we need to do something about this. Instead of focusing on quantity, let us direct our efforts towards quality,” she said.
Sharing the same sentiments was Collen Kabudura, the head of trade and marketing in the Ministry of Agriculture Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, who said if farmers were to sell their crop successfully, they should be compliant to the requirements of the respective sales floors.
One of the farmers attending the forum, Mr Tichaona Mazambara, said there was need for farmers to be educated about the proper way of tobacco farming because new farmers were inexperienced and often contribute negatively to the overall crop quality.
“Most of us are new in the tobacco farming industry and we therefore need more education about growing the crop. Curing is the most challenging part and we have a lot to learn in that area,” he said.
Instead of banning the growing of tobacco as per the proposal by the World Health Organisation, stakeholders attending the meeting recommended climate smart agriculture because banning tobacco growing permanently will impact negatively on farmers in rural areas.
At the end of the meeting, Ms Boka donated 2 000 litres of diesel to tobacco farmers in Chiwere to assist them in their farming activities.
Online Reporter