Walter Muchinguri Assistant Business Editor 
The tobacco marketing season will end next week with close to 213 million kilogrammes expected to have been sold. So far 212,7 million kilograms have been sold with contract sales accounting for more than 70 percent of the delivered crop. Contractors who are still handling tobacco are expected to finalise their purchases by Wednesday next week. Contractors have so far received 161,9 million kg valued at $538,08 million at an average price of $3,32 per kg.

Auction sales were finalised this week after the close of clean-up sales. Clean up sales brought in more than 200 000kg, resulting in the auction marketing system having handled a total of 50,7 million kg during the whole season.

This is a 6 percent and 38 percent drop in mass and revenue respectively, compared to performance of the system in 2013.
When auction floors initially closed at the end of last month 50,5 million kg had been sold after 89 trading days at an average price of $2,70/kg. Auction floors in 2013 accounted for 53,4 million kg after 99 days of sales, averaging $3,54/kg.

This represents a 31,6 percent increase from the 160,8 million kg that were sold during the previous season.
The 212,37 million kg realised $673,4 million at an average price of $3,17 per kg, which was 13 percent higher than the $595,6 million that was received at an average price of $3,69 per kg.

Meanwhile, the number of farmers registering for the season continues to increase with the latest figures showing that the figure is now about 106 456 compared to about 91 278 who had registered by the same period last year. The bulk of the registered growers are communal farmers at 48 292 followed by A1 farmers 37 805, A2 farmers 11 720 and small-scale commercial farmers 8 639.