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THE tobacco industry has intensified efforts towards sustainable curing methods to curb deforestation, with new initiatives achieving a 50 percent reduction in firewood usage, stakeholders revealed in Victoria Falls on Monday at the Cooperation Centre for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco (CORESTA) Congress 2026.
The congress, which has drawn tobacco researchers, regulators and industry players from across the globe, heard that the sector is moving decisively towards cleaner curing technologies and alternative fuels as pressure mounts to protect the country’s dwindling forests.
Speaking on the sidelines of the congress, Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development Dr Anxious Masuka said the Government was pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to reduce reliance on indigenous wood.
“We know that 85 percent of the tobacco is produced by 135 000 predominantly smallholder farmers. The first, of course, is to look at the more efficient curing systems without actually just looking at the means of fuel itself,” Dr Masuka said.
“Most of the smallholder farmers use fire, so if you’re able to use more efficient curing systems like the one developed by the Kutsanga, a rocket barn, which reduces firewood usage by 50 percent, then the next aspect is to be able to look at alternative fuels.”
Dr Masuka said the Government had waived the levy on coal to encourage farmers to abandon indigenous fuel, while the industry itself was planting gum trees to shift from indigenous timber to commercial plantations.
“By the 2027 to 2029 season, the Government has said from a policy perspective we must begin to phase out the use of indigenous trees, but because 93 to 94 percent of the tobacco is grown on contract, we wanted the contractors to begin to use alternative fuels from their contract schemes with the smallholder farmers. So, a lot is happening in this field,” he said.
Deforestation has been identified as a major threat to sustainability in Zimbabwe, particularly given that the bulk of the golden leaf is produced by smallholder farmers who have historically relied on firewood for curing.
Kutsanga board chairman Mr Aaron Denenga said the organisation had been closely monitoring harm reduction efforts in partnership with contracting companies and Government departments.
“The harm reduction we have been very closely monitoring, especially with other contracting companies, we have been working closely with those who are in the department, in education in terms of what we need to do in terms of reducing the tobacco harm,” Mr Denenga said.
“And I mean, one of the biggest issues we have in Zimbabwe is deforestation, and now we have come up with new technologies, which KUTSANGA itself has come up with, which is better barns that have reduced the use of wood by 50 percent, and now the science and research that we are undertaking now is to ensure that we come away from using indigenous wood and educating,” he said.
He said the efforts were part of a broader national drive to make tobacco production more sustainable.
“So, I can use that as one of the many examples of what Zimbabwe has been doing to reduce tobacco harm and the researchers have been coming together to make sure that we are reducing harm and being more sustainable,” he said.
The revelations at the congress underscore growing momentum within Zimbabwe’s tobacco value chain to balance production growth with environmental stewardship, as the country seeks to defend its position as one of the world’s leading tobacco producers.
