Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE anticipated early opening of this year’s tobacco selling season hangs in the balance due to incessant rains being experienced across the country.
Stakeholders in the tobacco industry who included the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, farmers, Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) and buyers had recommended that this year’s marketing opens mid-February. Last year, the tobacco marketing season opened on March 30.
TIMB chief executive officer Dr Andrew Matibiri told Business Chronicle the board was yet to come up with a date for the opening of this year’s tobacco selling season as most farmers across the country were not ready to sell their crop.
“No date has been set yet mainly because the farmers are not ready to sell as they are reaping and curing. We cannot set a date until the farmers are ready to sell their crop,” he said.
“Concerns have been raised over the incessant rains being experience across the country that have negatively affected the farmers’ preparedness as far as reaping and curing is concerned.”
Dr Matibiri said TIMB has licensed three auction floors namely Tobacco Sales Floor, Boka Tobacco Auction Floor and Premier Tobacco. He said 14 contract sales floors were prepared to buy tobacco from the farmers adding that buyers were still coming in for registration.
The Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union executive director Mr Paul Zakariya said the incessant rains being experienced across the country were disturbing the farmers’ preparations ahead of the early opening of the tobacco marketing season.
He said continued rains have seen most farmers not being able to reap and cure the crop ahead of the anticipated early opening of the season.
In a separate interview, the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) president Mr Wonder Chabikwa said farmers together with RBZ and other stakeholders in the tobacco sector recommended mid-February as the opening date for this year’s crop selling season.
“As per our recommendation that we made sometime in December last year, no changes against the agreed position has been communicated. Despite the incessant rains being experienced, farmers are still able to reap and cure their crop in barns,” he said.
Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe’s major foreign currency earners. Since 2009, when the country adopted a multicurrency system, the sector has been pivotal in improving liquidity supply.
This year, farmers expect to produce a better crop that would fetch favourable prices at the auction floors ranging between $4 and $5 a kilogramme. In 2016, Zimbabwe’s tobacco export earnings closed the year at $933 million. During the period under review, the country exported to about 65 countries across the globe.
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