TIMB urged farmers to accept the new marketing system as it will bring sanity to the industry considering the fact that the system is working perfectly in India.

THE tobacco e-marketing system last week experienced technical challenges forcing auction floors to revert to the manual system at the opening of the tobacco auction sales at Boka Auction Floors. Stakeholders in the industry are, however, hopeful the system will bring sanity to the once chaotic and corrupt selling system.
Having been embraced to enhance transparency amid allegations buyers were conniving to offer low prices for the golden leaf with a ceiling price of US$4,99 per kilogramme at auction floors, stakeholders in the sector are confident that the e-marketing system sourced by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) from India will provide a lasting solution to the pricing challenges.
Farmers last week came face to face with the new system and many expressed their disappointment at the inconveniences caused by the electronic system but they also expressed optimism that the new system will eradicate issues to do with price fixing.
Speaking to the Financial Gazette’s Agricultural News last week, some farmers from Macheke, although not understanding the new selling system, said they were happy that the e-marketing system will eliminate illicit floor activities.
“We do not know much about this selling system and we feel left out as this new technology is alien to us but we have been told that the e-marketing system is important in giving us a fair price for our crop,” Mathias Hassim a farmer from Macheke said.
“Previously farmers were being ripped off by buyers and merchants and were being paid low prices or the auction ceiling price of US$4,99 per kilogramme for good quality tobacco yet the same crop would fetch about US$6 per kilogramme at the contract sales. This new system, we have been told, will remove that ceiling price unfortunately the implementation is taking long and we cannot wait forever.
“However, the electronic sales are facing a lot of challenges and for some of us having come all the way from Macheke we do not even know what is going on. The sales were not smooth sailing, a lot of breakdowns, but we hope the situation will improve because we do not want these unscrupulous people claiming to be buyers at the auction floors benefitting more from our crop,” Hassim added.
“The new technology is very frustrating. It is slow and it is always malfunctioning at the most crucial point, but we hope that at the peak of the marketing season this machine will be working,” said Anna Matindike also from Macheke.
Last week, saw TIMB reverting back to the conventional way of selling the golden leaf as the e-marketing system faced technical glitches.
The e-marketing system is expected to reduce the processing time for grower payments and eliminate illegal activities, such as ticket tampering.
The electronic marketing system has been introduced to all tobacco auction floors and is expected to be gradually introduced to all contract sales as the season progresses.
In preparation for the marketing season, the industry conducted e-marketing mock sales witnessed by all stakeholders, including farmers, in preparation for the full deployment of the e-marketing system.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president, Wonder Chabikwa, urged TIMB to continue working on the system to eliminate the technical problems that the system is facing.
“We suspect that this new selling system is facing some resistance from the same merchants who were benefitting from the illegal activities at the auction floors.
“The e-marketing system is the answer to our worries as farmers because in the absence of the public auction system, electronic marketing encourages fair competition, fair pricing and it provides efficiency,” Chabikwa said.
According to Chabikwa, after the glitches on the first day, the system continued to face some problems as it would work maybe in the morning, but later in the day it would fail to work.
“The e-marketing system has been tried and tested and it is working perfectly in India. If it is working elsewhere, why is it failing to work in Zimbabwe? With such a scenario we become very suspicious as farmers,” Chabikwa said.
The e-marketing system is being used in India, the world’s third largest producer of tobacco after Brazil and United States. India has an annual production of 800 million kilogrammes.
TIMB urged farmers to accept the new marketing system as it will bring sanity to the industry considering the fact that the system is working perfectly in India.
According to the Indian Tobacco Board, although the manual auction system for sale of tobacco has been without hustles, they opted for the introduction of information technology to have absolute transparency in the auction proceedings and to eliminate errors that were being encountered with the old system.
“In the tobacco sector, the e-auction system for marketing of tobacco is the first initiative and it is unique in operation. The bidding process is very fast and it takes only four to five seconds for the sale of each bale; the system provides complete transparency in bidding process and facilitates growers to view the bidding process through the electronic displays,” the Indian Tobacco Board said.
During electronic auction system for tobacco, all buyers and starters are provided with electronic devices called Hand Held Terminals (HHT). All the data about the bales offered for sale, their weight, lot number and its grade and any other remarks are available in all the HHTs.
When using the HHT, the starter starts a price to a particular lot/tobacco bale and the same appears on all the buyers HHTs and those buyers who are interested in that particular lot/bale will go on adding a price and the buyer who quotes the highest will buy the bale.

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