High output expected as tobacco selling season opens
Sunday, 22 January 2012 13:20
BY OUR STAFF
THE 2012 tobacco selling season opens on February 15 amid expectations from
stakeholders of high output and quality crop.
The tobacco would be auctioned at four floors — Tobacco Sales Floor, Boka
Tobacco Floors, Millennium Tobacco and Premier Tobacco.
Players in the industry told Standardbusiness they hope for a “bit more in
terms of national yield and better quality tobacco”.
Zimbabwe Progressive Tobacco Farmers Union president, Nicholas Kapungu, told
Standardbusiness that the organisation is optimistic ahead of the selling
season, as all members will sell the crop to one buyer, Star International
Tobacco, whom they have agreed with on prices.
“We agreed with them on the prices before we planted our tobacco and the
price is good,” he said.
Kapungu said the union had secured the buyer to avoid congestion which
characterised floors the previous selling season.
Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (Timb) has already promised it has done
its work and the coming selling season would be congestion- free.
Kapungu said his union has a membership of 21 000 farmers, but managed to
secure inputs for 5 000 farmers. Each of the farmers was given inputs for
one hectare.
Kapungu said his union had organised for trucks to deliver tobacco to the
floors from the various districts. Every season, farmers complain of the
high transport costs to the floor, with growers saying the transport
operators were milking them of their hard-earned cash.
On burley tobacco, Kapungu said his union had identified a foreign buyer for
their crop starting next year. The buyer will provide inputs for burley. The
move to secure a foreign buyer for burley is a major breakthrough in the
tobacco industry as growers have been facing problems after the closure of
Burley Marketing Zimbabwe (BMZ), an auction floor that was dedicated to the
marketing of burley tobacco.
Burley tobacco growers — who owned BMZ — sold the floor to Savannah Tobacco,
a cigarette manufacturing company, in 2010.
Timb has already said that it expects buyers to exhaust the local crop
before it resorts to imports. Tobacco production is on the increase buoyed
by favourable prices on the auction floor but it has not yet reached
yesteryears’ peak.
In the 2011 season, 132,4 million kg were sold below the 170 million kg
output which had been projected by Timb.
It raked in US$361,5 million compared to the US$355,6 million realised in
2010. At its peak, Zimbabwe produced 236 million kg in 2000.