Tobacco reaping begins

Senior Agriculture Reporter
COMMERCIAL farmers in Manicaland are busy reaping the early irrigated tobacco crop, with most admitting being spared of power cuts that often characterised previous harvesting seasons.

Flue-cured tobacco is an energy-intensive crop, among other onerous requirements for its production.

Though the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority does not have the capacity to import adequate electricity, farmers revealed that the power utility was responding expeditiously to faults being experienced.

The provincial Agritex officer for Manicaland, Mr Godfrey Mamhare, said some commercial farmers started harvesting in November last year. Reaping was confined to commercial farms in Rusape, Headlands, Nyazura, Mutare, Mutasa and Odzi. However, the bulk of the tobacco crop in small-scale communities was still at the vegetative stage, and will be due for harvesting mid-January.

The crop was affected by the hot spell that follows immediately after transplanting. As a result, the fields are dotted and without the even straight crop witnessed in irrigated commercial fields.

The crop has also been heavily leached as a result of the incessant rains.

Mr Denford Mutwiwa of Mutwiwa Farm in Headlands told The Manica Post that he started harvesting late last November and has to date stocked more than 30 000kg. He has planted 150ha, 80 of which are under irrigation.

He uses mainly electricity and coal for curing purposes. Curing is the process in which tobacco is hung in barns and wood fires or coal are used to heat the air and dry the leaves, in a process that gives it that golden outlook and smoky flavour.

“This time the electricity supply is constant, it is better than the previous seasons.

“We experience faults here and there, and the guys are able to attend to them. We have so far cured 30 tonnes of gold-leaf at minimal cost when compared to other seasons where we would have electricity for less than three hours per day, thereby augmenting by firing the barns using diesel (1 000l per week),” said Mr Mutwiwa.

The Tobacco Association of Zimbabwe president Mr David Guy Mutasa said he has harvested about 5 000kg from his Matambura Farm in Rusape.

“We are not curing primings because the buyers are not interested in them. It is advisable for farmers to trip their crop of the first six to eight leaves. They have no value at all. The primings are the ones that go for 20 cents.

“In our area the load-shedding has been minimal, but we are experiencing many faults which ZESA is taking time to attend to. We have many farmers who are harvesting gum poles for sale as fuel wood that are falling on top of power lines, and it is those faults that are taking long to rectify,” said Mr Mutasa.

Efforts to get a comment from Mr Graeme Chadwick, who rents several farms in Headlands, were fruitless.

Mr Kuda Msindo of Gijima Farm started reaping in December.

Another farmer, Retired Major Ernest Jinjika of Lion Head Farm in Rusape, said he started harvesting on December 6.

Mr Mamhare said those farmers whose crop has not ripened are to continue with weeding, applying fertilisers and pest control chemicals to get the best crop possible.

He also warned farmers against wiping the indigenous forests in search of fuel wood to cure the gold leaf.

He said farmers must resort to other sources of fuel like coal, electricity or plantation wood-fuel that do not sponsor land degradation and deforestation in their respective communities.

Tobacco farming is synonymous with serious environmental damage amid reports that thousands of hectares of forest are cut down each year for the cigarette industry.

Substantial amounts of indigenous trees like mutondo, mupfuti, musasa and muunze trees, which have become endangered species, are preferred wood-fuel because they are cheap and readily available in the communities, ignoring the ecological consequences.

Environmentalists are urging farmers to join the Hwange Colliery Company programme on the use of coal in curing the golden leaf to assist in the conservation of indigenous trees, which are under threat from massive deforestation, in their areas.

Under the programme initiated by the coal mining giant, farmers benefited from coal availed by rural district councils at subsidised prices to ensure viability.

Apart from conserving the forests, coal cured tobacco is said to have a better quality compared to the crop cured using fire-wood.