adminElita Chikwati Senior Agriculture Reporter
Farmers have planted 105 613 hectares of tobacco as preparations for the 2022 marketing season get underway.
A Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) weekly update revealed that farmers have this season planted 87 335 hectares of tobacco under dryland and 18 275ha under irrigation.
This is slightly lower than the 106 494ha planted during the same period last year.
In most areas, rain-fed tobacco ranges from early vegetative to topping, while farmers with an early planted irrigated crop have started reaping and curing is in progress.
Stakeholder consultations for the opening of the marketing season are underway with farmers already lobbying for a review of the foreign currency retention.
Farmers are also calling for an incentive such as the Command Tobacco programme to enable them to go back to the land and register profits.
TIMB yesterday embarked on a crop assessment to determine the state of the crop and help establish dates for the opening of this year’s marketing season.
Growers were last season getting 60 percent of their money in foreign currency and 40 percent was converted at the prevailing auction exchange rate on the day of sale and paid in local currency.
Tobacco Association of Zimbabwe president, Mr George Seremwe, yesterday said stakeholder consultations were underway.
“Preparations for the marketing season have started and currently stakeholders are consulting on a number of issues. We are engaging the TIMB, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Our expectations are that there could be a review of foreign currency so that we can retain a huge percentage and remain viable. Inputs prices have increased. Fertiliser prices have sky-rocketed while labour is now demanding foreign currency. So we need more foreign currency,” he said.
TIMB spokesperson, Ms Chelesani Moyo said starting yesterday(Monday)TIMB with other key stakeholders are embarking on a national crop assessment exercise. The aim is to predict national yield and qualities,” she said.
According to the TIMB, by last Friday, 121788 farmers had registered for tobacco for the 2021/22 season.
This is a decline of 19 percent from the 144 495 growers who had registered during the same period last year.
TIMB has attributed the decline of the number of registered growers to the tightening processes to ensure only genuine farmers register for tobacco. The board has tightened the vetting and verification processes for farmer registration and grower number renewal.
Online Reporter