daniel chigunwe
Obert Chifamba
Agri-Insight
THE countdown to the start of the 2025 tobacco marketing season is now at full gallop.
High expectations accompanied by loads of anxiety now mark the order of the day for the bulk of those farmers whose crop is ready for marketing, as they ponder on what the prices will be like.
Like always, these farmers expect high returns, which makes a lot of sense given that they have to recoup the capital invested in the production of the crop and be able to both finance another season and take care of their socio-economic concerns as well.
The run-up to the opening of the marketing season is usually the most psychologically disquieting for tobacco farmers, as they have to deal with high levels of uncertainty on how the prevailing global market trends will impact on their dreams of a fruitful season.
Of course, this anxiety will soon be a thing of the past, as each day that passes is bringing them closer to this moment of final reckoning. Soon the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) will announce the date and the marketing modalities paving the way for the season to get underway.
The most topical issue among tobacco farmers at the moment formed the nucleus of most debates on tobacco farming. Justifiably so, prices are the ultimate matter every farmer should be seized with, come the conclusion of every production season.
The marketing season marks that point in the production process when a farmer takes an audit of everything he would have invested into the production process and looks at the monetary value versus what the product will earn him eventually.
Let me, however, hasten to remind farmers that farming, like any other business, must generate revenue that tallies with the effort they would have invested into the production process.
The issue of the quality of the tobacco leaf versus the prices farmers expect must not be forgotten in the perennial fight to have farmers getting good prices.
Sometimes merchants are caught between a rock and a hard surface when they are expected to award high prices in the face of growing suspicions of unholy alliances among them, purportedly to short-change farmers and paying prices determined by quality.
It is important for farmers to pause a bit and look at the quality of their product and also try to get an understanding of what it means for a leaf to be graded as high or low quality.
In some cases, merchants can easily be turned into scapegoats for farmers’ shoddy showing and always be labelled as counter-productive – something that leaves farmers in the comfort zone of feeling that they are victims of a conspiracy among buyers every year.
Buyers also need to get the true value of their money although in some cases they want to reap where they did not sow or where they did not offer the expected support especially for crops grown under contract.
Last season, for instance, was a bit odd because low grade tobacco fetched good prices on the market, thanks to the low supplies orchestrated by the El Nino-inspired drought that saw less tobacco being produced.
This development effectively allowed the low of supply and demand to set in and dictate the way business was done.
The market sought to make sure everything produced that season was utilised to the point that even scrap tobacco had a good price.
Prices that were quoted last season for a crop that ordinarily would not have fetched good prices must not fool farmers into believing that they can make good money even from low quality produce.
They must always aim for the highest grades to fetch optimal prices.
This season, things have turned for the better with the good rains being experienced that will naturally yield good crops and set the stage for the highest quality to dictate the nature of prices the leaf will fetch.
Farmers must realise that it is not always that there are buyers out to fleece them.
They must concentrate on using the best agronomic practices to ensure production of the golden leaf remains sustainable and allow produce from Zimbabwe to be sought after by buyers from every corner of the globe.
It must not end with the proper agronomic practices on the field only but must also extend to the curing, grading, grading and storing procedures leading to the marketing process.
The leaf must be presented in a manner that extinguishes doubts on the way it was produced and processed.
Once farmers master this, they stand a good chance of raking in huge rewards, come the marketing season of the crop.
It will not hurt them to follow the proper production procedures to the last letter and see how their produce fares at the market before pointing the finger at unscrupulous buyers who in some cases do not have anything to do with the way a crop was managed during production.
In recent seasons, there have also been worrying incidences of tobacco farmers falling prey to robbers who would pounce and take bales or even the truck ferrying the tobacco.
This, in most cases, is avoidable if farmers act as true businesspeople who do their business to book.
It is fast becoming apparent that farmers who fall victim to the marauding robbers usually do not hire reliable transporters with vehicles that are roadworthy.
Such transporters usually want to move at night to escape the scrutiny of police and as fate will always have it, they usually experience breakdowns, which leave them exposed to criminals.
It is important for farmers to form groups and pool resources and hire reliable transporters that move during day. Pre-delivery bookings are also important to avoid just pitching up and spend time before being attended to, which naturally creates extra costs and expose the produce to various threats both natural and man-made.
The Covid-19 era may have been unpopular with many people because of the ruthless treatment it unleashed on humanity but left lessons on progressive ways of doing business.
For tobacco farmers, the first thing was that they should not just appear from nowhere but make bookings to enable the floors to prepare for their coming and serve them expeditiously upon arrival.
The orderliness that was witnessed during that difficult time should be maintained even after the pandemic has gone given that disease outbreaks normally find fertile grounds in big gatherings.
Those farmers who have completed grading and baling and are now just waiting for TIMB to announce the dates should remember that storage losses can also ruin an entire season’s efforts. The crop should be stored under proper conditions to make sure nothing spoils the quality it had when it was sent for storage. In the spirit of business, let the marketing season begin!
Online Reporter