Online Reporter
TOBACCO is the country’s single biggest agricultural foreign exchange earner, raking in about $1bn yearly.
This makes the golden leaf the nation’s second biggest export after gold. It is grown by up to 150 000 farmers mainly in the northern half of the country. A few hundred are growing it in Midlands, Matabeleland and Masvingo provinces too.
It supports thousands of jobs at marketing and value addition stages.
Thus, tobacco is a crop of national significance.
We noted with delight on Friday when the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) announced that the country had surpassed its target to produce 300 million kilogrammes of the crop with more deliveries expected as the industry is at the mid-point of the marketing season. Farmers have shared $1bn so far, with more cash on the way as they will continue delivering the crop up to September.
“This remarkable achievement is a tribute to the dedication, resilience, and excellence of Zimbabwe’s tobacco farmers, extension officers, contractors, financiers, and stakeholders across the entire value chain,” said TIMB chief executive officer, Mr Emmanuel Matsvaire.
“We must not only look at volume-driven horizontal growth, but also value-driven vertical growth. Let’s improve the weight and quality of our tobacco and reduce harvest and post-harvest losses.”
Credit for this record crop, which beats the 296 million kg produced in 2023, goes to the farmers, the Government, TIMB and the private sector.
Farmers are mastering the skill of growing this demanding but financially rewarding crop, 22 years after the land redistribution programme. The TIMB is continuing to upskill them while contractors are pumping in millions to provide inputs to growers and markets. Contractors financed 95 percent of this year’s output; the remainder being delivered by self-financing farmers.
We, too, have a growing group of private investors who are structuring joint ventures with some farmers.
Also contributing to the record output was the favourable rainfall the country received over the October 2024-March 2025 growing season.
The 2025 production guidance as set out in the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan (TVCTP) that the Government rolled out in 2021, has been achieved. We celebrate.
The biggest challenge farmers, financiers, the Government and the TIMB now face going forward is to scale output, never to produce less as 300 million kg is not a once-off. At the same time growers must, as Mr Matsvaire said, improve on leaf quality and reduce post-harvest losses. Buyers must continue paying favourable prices.
That is as far as it goes from the field to the trading floor but there is a whole new industry beyond the two stages.
The TVCTP aims to boost domestic value addition and beneficiation of tobacco from about two percent of yearly output to about 30 percent. That is through local production of cigarettes, snuff, cigars, shisha tobacco and so on to create a $5 billion value chain.
The sector has already met the production target thus we have no doubt that other milestones as outlined in the TVCTP would be achieved for greater national development.
