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Agriculture Reporter
THE sun continues to shine for tobacco farmers with their earnings for the 2023 marketing season hitting US$461 million from the sale of 154 million kilogrammes of the golden leaf by Day 38.
During the corresponding period last year, the farmers had sold 110 million kilogrammes of tobacco worth US$329 million. This marks a 40 percent change with the average price for this year is sitting at US$3 per kilogramme versus US$2, 98 for last season. This represents a slight change of 0, 51 percent.
As has become the tradition, contract floors have done more business – selling 141 million kilogrammes of the flue-cured tobacco worth US$423m as opposed to 13 million kilogrammes of tobacco worth US$38m that have been traded at the auction floors.
The highest price recorded so far at both floors is US$6, 20 per kilogramme that was scored at the contract floors while the lowest has not changed from last season’s US$0, 10 per kilogramme at both floors as well.
This season, farmers will retain 85 percent of their earnings in hard currency up from last year’s 75 percent. The rest of the earnings will be in local currency pegged at the prevailing interbank exchange rate. The decision to award farmers 85 percent of their foreign currency earnings was made effective starting February 6, this year.
Tobacco deliveries are projected to rise to 230 million kilogrammes this year, up from last season’s 212 million kilogrammes. This year, farmers have planted 112 293ha of tobacco down from last season’s 116 454ha while the area under the irrigated crop increased by 2 percent from 17 867ha last year to 18 237ha this year. Production on dry land also rose 4 percent from 94 426ha to 98 273ha this time around.
Tobacco is the country’s second largest foreign currency earner after gold.
Online Reporter