Tobacco farmers expect quality crop due to good rains

TOBACCO output is expected to be high in both volume and quality due to the good rains that the country is receiving this cropping season.

George Seremwe, president of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Growers Association, an amalgamation of four unions, told journalists that the quality of the tobacco crop was good and would be able to fetch top prices when the marketing season opened soon.

“This year, we have got a very good crop. The rains were good, even the dry land crop which is rain fed could be looking like the irrigated crop because the rains were quite good.

“We are expecting a very good quality crop. We are only concerned that the inputs were quite expensive, so the prices we are going to fetch from the market should reflect that,” he said.

The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board is however still conducting a crop assessment to determine the size and volume of tobacco expected this year.

Seremwe said some farmers were currently curing their crop, in readiness for the 2023 selling season.

“Curing is ongoing,” he said.

Tobacco is the country’s biggest agricultural export and second largest single commodity export after gold, raking in around US$800 million in 2021.

Its output has grown from 48 million kilograms in 2008 to over 200 million kilograms now, and the bulk of it is produced by small-scale resettled farmers.

Currently, only 18 percent of the crop is grown under irrigation, and the intention is to expand this to at least 40 percent.

But the success in increasing tobacco output came at a huge environmental cost as it led to massive deforestation, especially in resettled farms.

The TIMB and other concerned stakeholders are keenly grappling with the problem by promoting the use of fuel-efficient tobacco curing barns and renewable energy sources.