adminThe Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union executive director Mr Paul Zakariya said irrigated tobacco growers had started harvesting and curing the crop.
“The crop is being harvested from the fields and cured ahead of the marketing season. Farmers should be booking the floors to avoid congestion,” he said.
Despite Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) licensing Boka Tobacco Floors and Millennium Tobacco Floors last year, the floors were characterised by congestion, as most of the growers had not booked the floors on time.
Mr Zakariya urged the farmers to register with the TIMB to facilitate marketing of the golden leaf.
At the beginning of the last selling season, prices at the auction floors were good with a kilogramme of the crop fetching $5.
“However, during the mid-season prices went down to as low as $2,10 a kg and this was terrible to the producers as it could not allow them to meet production costs incurred,” he said.
He said farmers were told that the slump in the tobacco price at the floors during the mid-season was because the Chinese buyers had withdrawn from buying the crop.
Commenting on the price the farmers were expecting this season, Mr Zakariya said: “When talking of tobacco marketing, we are dealing with auctioning, so it is very difficult to project the price.”
He said over the years Zimbabwe has been producing an excellent tobacco variety with a unique quality.
“Zimbabwe is producing an excellent crop and it should definitely be pulling a premium on the market,” he said.
In 2011, more than 70 000 farmers registered to grow tobacco and according to Mr Zakariya, 25 000 of these registered growers were small-scale farmers.
In the last selling season, 132 million kg of tobacco were sold through contract and auction system resulting in Zimbabwe earning more than $360 million.
In 2010, the country raked in $355 million from 123 million kg.
Online Reporter