admin
Edgar Vhera
Agriculture Specialist Writer
ALL is set for the planting of irrigated tobacco with the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) offering farmers a partnership deal allowing them to secure all their electricity requirements for the season.
Planting of the 2024/25 irrigated tobacco starts on September 1 every year and stakeholders are optimistic that this year’s hectarage and output will dwarf all other seasons judging by the high seed sale statistics.
The largest area put under tobacco was 146 000 hectares in 2019 while the record-breaking yields of 296 million kilogrammes were recorded in 2023.
In a notice to all licenced contractors, tobacco associations and unions as well as tobacco leaf exporters association of Zimbabwe (TLEAZ), the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) said the TIMB/ZETDC initiative was meant to improve electricity supply to farmers.
“TIMB and ZETDC are forging a strategic partnership to address key challenges faced by tobacco farmers and enhance the overall reliability and efficiency of electricity supplies for the sector while reducing cost of production.
“Several areas are being considered for collaboration under this partnership – from net metering, electricity coupons, electricity infrastructure rehabilitation and reinforcement, geographic information system (GIS) mapping of tobacco farmers and demand side management,” read the notice.
To actualise the arrangement, ZETDC has since invited tobacco farmers to submit the coordinates of their transformers and their metre numbers with contractors expected to coordinate the collation of this information by September 15.
Non-contracted farmers can also submit their information to TIMB by this deadline, added the notice.
TIMB business development manager Mr Tapiwa Chimedza said the consummation of this arrangement would lower cost of production to farmers as they would be able to feed their excess electricity into the national grid.
“This arrangement will benefit those farmers who might have, for example, installed 15 or 20 kilo-volt-amperes (kVA) solar systems on their premises, yet their use of electricity at a particular time is less than that which is being generated.
“We plan to put metres, which will feed back excess electricity into the national grid to reduce farmers’ electricity bills, a net metering arrangement,” he said.
Mr Chimedza said another option was that of locating the farmer lines and transformers to enable them to get coupons for cushioning against load shedding.
Zimbabwe Tobacco Growers Association (ZTGA) chairman, Mr George Seremwe said although the proposal was still at the formative stage, growers were happy with it, as it was likely going to lower cost of production especially for the irrigated crop.
“We are heading towards the right direction through the net metering arrangement since some farmers are using solar energy for electricity. Its still too early to see whether it will improve farmer profitability or not,” the ZTGA chair said.
Mr Seremwe said uninterrupted power supply helped improve yield, the quality of leaf and lowered losses.
“We applaud the initiative and want all the players to come up with a win-win situation for everyone. We hope this arrangement will lower the cost of electricity, which is currently high,” he added.
Online Reporter