Tobacco output is expected to be
high in both volume and quality due to the good rains that the country
received this cropping season, a farmers organisation said on Thursday.
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 countrys 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 through promoting the use of fuel efficient tobacco curing barns
and renewable energy sources.