HARARE: Tobacco grower’s registration for the 2015/16 tobacco growing season has declined by 21 percent to 69,803. Latest data obtained from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) indicate that as of December 25, the growers’ registration was 18,049 less than 87,852 recorded during the same period last year. The figures show that 33,491 communal farmers have so far registered for the 2015/16 season compared to 40,896 farmers during the same period in 2014.
During the same period last year, there were 32,236 A1 farmers that had registered compared to 25,211 so far. A total of 5,803 A2 farmers have so far registered for the 2015/16 cropping season compared to 7,839 A2 farmers in the previous season. On the small-scale sector, TIMB indicated that this year 5,298 growers have registered compared to 6,908 during the same period last year.
The marketing board also revealed that the area under tobacco crop for the 2015/16 farming season has also dropped to 56,478 hectares compared to 57,224 during the same period last year. In the last season, most tobacco growers complained about low prices while the merchants argued that the quality of the crop was poor.
The golden leaf has become Zimbabwe’s major foreign currency earner, with close to 92,000 farmers growing the crop as at the 2014/15 season, a number significantly higher than 52,000 farmers three years ago.
Many farmers have abandoned traditional crops like maize and cotton to cultivate tobacco, but lack of expertise and unsuitable conditions have resulted in a number of them producing a poor crop, analysts have said.
Tobacco exports for 2015 were 151,9 million kilogrammes compared to 135,5 million kilogrammes in 2014. Last year, Zimbabwe raked in over $1 billion from flue-cured tobacco exports. The country exports the golden leaf to countries such as China, South Africa, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Cyprus, and Australia.
