Online Reporter
Lovemore Kadzura
Post Reporter
FOR years, ‘Christmas in winter’ swept through Manicaland tobacco belt like a warm wind.
April to July, the soil’s green gold turned into brick and mortar, iron roofs and lounge suites, motorbikes humming down dusty roads to Nyazura, Headlands, Rusape and Odzi.
You could smell it – fresh cement drying under a pale sun, diesel from new pick-ups, varnish rising from carpentry shops that never closed.
Women balanced wardrobes on their heads – men argued over solar panels and borehole pumps. Shops counted cash past midnight. Children wore new jerseys to beat the cold. The leaf did not just pay school fees – it built futures.
This season, the music is off-key.
The auction floors still echo with gavel cracks and bidders’ calls, but outside, the talk is debt, not dreams.
The air in the townships is thinner. No fresh paint sting, no roar of delivery trucks. Furniture workshops where sawdust once danced in sunbeams now sweep empty floors by 3pm. Bottle stores count bottles, not bundles of notes. Roads that once carried sofas and scotch-carts carry only dust.
Across tobacco producing hubs, the metaphor has curdled.
The golden leaf, once a communal bonfire, has become a single candle farmer’s shield from the wind. Debts rise like winter mist, inputs cost what used to buy cattle. The season that built villages now asks them to endure.
Across major tobacco-growing areas, farmers are lamenting what they describe as disappointing prices that have left them struggling to cover production costs, let alone make the life-changing investments they once associated with the golden leaf.
At auction floors and contract selling points, conversations that once centred on plans to build bigger homes or buy new vehicles have been replaced by concerns over debts, rising input costs and shrinking profits.
Many recall seasons when tobacco earnings transformed entire communities. Modern brick houses replaced pole-and-dagga structures, solar systems were installed, boreholes drilled and children enrolled in better schools.
“We used to come back from the tobacco floors with enough money to change our lives. I moved on to my plot seven years ago and through proceeds from tobacco I managed to build up household and tobacco infrastructure from scratch – the homestead, borehole, cattle pens and fowl runs. I acquired a small lorry and managed to buy a stand and build a house in Nyazura Township.
“I bought household furniture and sent my children to school without scratching my head over fees. This season is very different. The prices are too low and there is very little left after paying expenses. I had planted six hectares and invested about US$4 500 hoping for a windfall, but I just got around US$2 000. My crop was of very good quality, but at the auction floors, it was never considered. This is unbearable as I am yet to pay up labour. The highest price I got was US$2 per kg and the lowest was 0.30 cents.
“The most affected are small-scale farmers, especially those like me, who self-financed their production. Debtors want their money back and some have resorted to selling their livestock to cover arrears. We appeal to the Government for some bailouts so that we are not thrown out of business. It was something that was known that there is an oversupply of tobacco on the market, but that information was not relayed down to producers. This season I will reduce the area planted and adopt other crops such as tomatoes, potatoes and maize so that I have a fall back plan,” Mr Tapiwa Mashiri, a tobacco farmer from Chinyika, Makoni North.
Local economies also thrived as tobacco money circulated through various sectors.
In Rusape, carpenters along Chiduku Road, who manufacture wardrobes, kitchen units, beds and dining tables often enjoyed their busiest months during the marketing season.
Metal fabricators behind Vengere Bus Terminus along Old Tsanzaguru Road, who produce window frames, fencing wire and roofing trusses for farmers investing in new homes and farm infrastructure, were equally busy.
Farmers also bought scotch carts, ploughs and other implements.
Today, many of these downstream beneficiaries say business has slowed dramatically.
Rusape Carpenters Association chairperson, Sheik Asani Matora said orders that would normally keep workshops busy for months have almost disappeared as farmers have little to spend.
“In previous years, farmers would place orders for bedroom suites and lounge furniture as soon as they got paid. Tobacco farmers have traditionally been our biggest customers, particularly this time of the year. In the past, we used to operate late into the night trying to meet the demand from farmers, but this year they are not even coming to ask prices.
“This year we had anticipated that it will be the same as other years and we had manufactured a lot of wardrobes, sofas, beds, kitchen units and other items. However, as you can see we are stuck with loads of unsold furniture here. Tobacco selling season has more clients than Christmas period and every carpenter here makes some good money,” he said.
Retailers, especially agro-dealers who rely on farmers reinvesting tobacco proceeds into the next production cycle, are also feeling the pinch.
At business centres that usually experience a surge in sales, shop owners report lower-than-expected customer traffic and reduced spending.
“Normally this is our peak period. Farmers buy fertilisers and other inputs in bulk in preparation for the next season. We prepare for the season months in advance. This year sales have been disappointing, as farmers are not spending. In-fact they are not even coming to our shops. Money is not circulating in Rusape as it used to do during tobacco marketing seasons. The tobacco season usually determines how much business we do for the rest of the year. When farmers earn well, they immediately start preparing for the next season and buy inputs for other summer crops,” said Mr Washington Manyuchi.
An employee at a local farm shop said by this time last year they had sold around 100 motorbikes, mainly to farmers, but this year they have sold just seven.
Illegal money changers who target farmers offloading their local currency component are complaining of very low business as farmers are prudently spending the little they received.
Economic analysts note that tobacco’s importance extends beyond individual farmers. The crop supports thousands of jobs and businesses throughout the value chain, creating a multiplier effect that stimulates rural economies. When tobacco farmers earn less, the effects ripple through entire communities, affecting transport operators, traders and service providers who depend on seasonal spending.
As the marketing season progresses, farmers remain hopeful that prices will improve.
For now, however, the winter cheer that once characterised Zimbabwe’s tobacco-growing communities is largely absent.
In many tobacco hubs, there is no Christmas in winter this year.
Ends
