Forum seeks to improve tobacco quality

farmers realise good value from their crop.
The growers’ forum launched at Chidziwo Farm in Harare South seeks to provide a platform for interaction among farmers, service providers and buyers.
“The forum will create a platform where our customers, that are tobacco growers, can have an opportunity of telling us their challenges,” executive chairman of Boka Tobacco Floor Mr Mathew Boka said in an interview.
“By doing so, we will then know how best can we assist. That will certainly help them to produce the best grade tobacco. In our forum, farmers will also get ideas from experts on what needs to be done not only to produce huge volumes, but also the best quality.”
Zimbabwe has now an estimated 60 000 tobacco farmers.
Mr Boka said while it was encouraging to note that many Zimbabweans were now in tobacco farming thanks to the land reform programme, efforts must now be directed towards producing good quality.
“Our country is known for producing good quality. While we can have thousands growing tobacco, it is also important that farmers get the best value by producing good quality.
“It will not really help the country and the farmers when we produce low-grade tobacco” he added.
Mr Boka said the interaction with farmers would enable them to know farmers’ expectations in terms of service delivery at the floors.
“It’s not only us who expects good quality, but farmers also want good service from us.”
He said the growers’ forum would be held in other tobacco growing areas around the country.
Farmers attended the launch from areas such as Darwendale, Goromonzi and Manicaland. Farmers expressed a lot of interest in being involved in the implementation of the programme.
Also present were farmers’ unions, tobacco buyers, representatives from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board and the Kutsaga Research Board.
Tobacco used to be a preserve of a few white farmers who possessed the bulk of the country’s arable and fertile land while the majority blacks were relegated to the infertile and less productive soils.