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The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has said the crop’s selling season will begin on 15 February and this is the second time running tobacco auctioning has started earlier than in the past when the crop was sold between April and May. Mr Nherera said some tobacco growers were still harvesting the early planted crop.
“Currently the farmers are busy harvesting while others have already started curing and grading their early and normal rainfall planted crop in preparation for the marketing season mid next month,” he said.
He said some of the farmers were already curing the crop using coal distributed through various stakeholders including district councils in tobacco growing regions. “Some of the farmers are already curing their crop using coal distributed through stakeholders such as respective rural district councils. To curb deforestation, the farmers have resorted to tree planting drives in their regions and we hope that in the next two years, 50 percent of the crop will be cured using coal,” said Mr Nherera, who is also an agronomist.
This marketing season, he said, farmers expect the average price of tobacco at the auction floors to be US$3 per kg, the same as that of the previous season or even better.
According to Mr Nherera, during the 2010/11 farming season 90 000 hectares of tobacco were put under tobacco compared to 60 000 hectares planted in 2009/10 cropping season. Players in the tobacco industry have projected that at least 170 million kilogrammes of the golden leaf will this year go under the harmer surpassing 123 million kg achieved in the previous season, which saw Zimbabwe realising US$355 million.
Online Reporter