Obert Chifamba
Agri-Insight
The 2021 tobacco marketing season got off to an auspicious start last Wednesday, with statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) indicating that farmers sold 92 106kg of flue-cured tobacco worth US$173 256 on the first day.

Essentially, this represents a colossal jump from last season’s 7 815kg sold on the first day for US$13 566.

A cumulative 1 274 bales were laid at the auction floors with 1 154 being sold at an average price of US$1,88 per kilogramme.

This year’s opening prices were slightly firmer than last year’s average price of US$1,74 per kilogramme.

Harare’ traditional auction floors Boka, Tobacco Sales Floors (TSF) and Premier were active on the first day as usual, while contract floors opened a day later.

An observation worth noting is that small towns such as Marondera, Rusape, Mvurwi, Karoi and Bindura also had contract floors running on the second day of the marketing season with proceedings going on smoothly.

Some farmers scored as high as US$5,20 per kilogramme for their tobacco.

But this is not what today’s offering will be dwelling on.

It is the idea of decentralising floors to various small towns in the tobacco growing regions of the country that will make a big difference this year.

This idea has had many still-births for years, which left most farmers without option but to make the long journey to Harare while in worst case scenarios unscrupulous buyers pounced on the desperate situation to buy the tobacco for a song to resell later.

It is a fact that in recent seasons, transport costs coupled with a myriad of other challenges at the floors have made the marketing season the most dreadful part of the tobacco production process for many farmers.

Some have ended up side marketing produce and getting into nasty legal battles with contractors while also dealing with irate service providers that would also be waiting for their bite of the cake just like they would have been promised.

Suffice it to say therefore that this year there will minimal challenges involving farmers struggling to fund the moving of their tobacco to the floors given that most transporters seem to have been conniving to calculate their charges per every kilometre they would have covered en route to the floors.

Decentralisation of floors has not come as a blessing only to farmers but to the communities surrounding the small towns in which the floors will be operating, as the move will present job opportunities to the jobless.

There are many people and even businesses along the value chain that are benefiting from this development.

Tobacco marketing seasons normally bring more liquidity into the economy so this time around cash will easily exchange hands in places where there used to be very little activity to necessitate that.

Other service providers such as input and equipment suppliers and banks also need to take a cue from this and open branches where such floors have been established to allow farmers to purchase some of their requirements for next season immediately after getting paid.

In Bindura, for instance, Nedbank has reportedly opened a branch where farmers can access their earnings once they complete the selling of their produce.

It will also be good for banks that open branches for that purpose to ensure they demonstrate their commitment to the farmers’ cause by giving them their money timeously once they receive it and also make sure they have adequate security to take care of opportunistic robbers trying to take advantage of the situation.

The other important point to note is that the decentralisation of floors has come at an opportune moment when it was so direly needed because of the coronavirus pandemic that requires people not to gather in their numbers, but do their business and go to their homes in the quickest possible time.

The long and short of it is that even if it is Covid-19 or not, decentralisation of floors is a noble idea and farmers must just come and be served and go away immediately.

There are a lot of other disease outbreaks that are inspired by crowded environments so whether farmers are selling cotton, maize or any other crop, they should just do their business and go away, period!

The current decentralisation of floors will certainly help decongest the traditional contract floors such as Tian Ze and Mashonaland Tobacco Company (MTC) in Harare where many farmers are contracted to produce the golden leaf.

The spreading of floors to various parts of the country will mean that farmers in those regions are no longer burdened with the costs of travelling to Harare, which in some cases has seen some of them losing their produce in transit because of many different reasons such as theft or elements of the weather.

In a way, this will bolster security for produce as farmers just do bookings ahead of bringing produce with the floors taking numbers they can afford to serve on a given day, which also reduces pressure on banks.

Payments should this season not take long like what used to happen in the past when farmers would come unannounced and do their business then wait to be paid.

Contractors buying tobacco at these floors should also not take advantage of the farmers and work in syndicates to create price ceilings.

Static prices have haunted farmers in the recent past with some even opting to abandon tobacco and start growing other cash crops such as cotton, soya beans and maize yet we all know that tobacco is one of the most rewarding crops if buyers are fair.

It is, however, refreshing to realise that TIMB has this time around spelt out new regulations on how contractors should conduct their business as they deal with contracted farmers to make the latter are not at their mercy but get fair deals.

TIMB should walk the talk and make sure all contractors as well as the farmers are sticking to what they would have agreed on when they signed the contracts.

The regulatory board should not hesitate to act on any party caught flouting contractual agreements and must even consider blacklisting such offenders to protect the tobacco industry, which is a crucial player in turning the wheels of the country’s economy.

Currently, in excess of 90 percent of the tobacco being produced across the country is funded through contact arrangements, which has enabled resource constrained farmers to also participate in supporting the national economy.