Tobacco board set to meet demand

Harare Bureau
THE Tobacco Research Board (TRB) expects to meet seed demand next year following the commissioning of a new seed packaging machine with a capacity of one million kilogrammes per annum.TRB’s packaging process has been transformed from a manual system manned by at least 10 workers packing only 10kg of seed per day.

The new machine raises seed packaging  to 120kg per day.

“When we were packing manually, it was difficult to cope with the demand for seed on the market,” said Christina Chisango, the  head of the Seed Production  Division.

The manual method of sealing has also been a challenge with unscrupulous business people taking advantage of the loophole to sell fake seed.

“Our method of sealing wasn’t quite tight so we’d have breakages and seed returned from the selling points and growers complaining that in the  end what they got was less than what was on the label,” said Chisango.

“Unscrupulous business people would also take advantage of the fact that our sealing wasn’t tight and would nicely open the packets and fill with fake seed and sell to unsuspecting customers because the package was genuine but what was inside was not the real thing,” she said.

The new machine was unveiled and commissioned by TRB chairperson  Millicent Mombeshora.

Mombeshora said: “The new machine helps the Board to enhance technology and will help improve efficiency in seed packaging. It will improve the way we do business at Tobacco Research Board.”

Apart from tobacco, TRB is earmarking to plant six million fast growing eucalyptus species next  year, as the board adopts new technologies for the development of seedlings.

The board expects to have planted 3,5 million trees by the end of this  year in an effort to arrest the deforestation associated with tobacco curing.

The project started with only about 200,000 seedlings per year  but so far this year more than 1,6 million seedlings have been dispatched.

To push up the tree seedling production, TRB has modified the float tray technology popularly used for tobacco seedling to produce more trees.

TRB general manager Dahlia Garwe said: “We’ve now dispatched 1,630,000 seedlings and we intend to have dispatched 3,5 million seedlings by the end of the year. For the next season we intend to have at least six million trees available for dispatch,” she said.