Tobacco Farming Negatively Impacts Zimbabwe’s Indigenous Forests
December 21, 2011
Peta Thornycroft | Johannesburg
Zimbabwe’s indigenous forests are disappearing at an unprecedented rate.
Thousands of new tobacco farmers say they have to use wood to cure their
crop because they cannot afford coal mined in western Zimbabwe.
The forests were in relatively good shape, compared to some other countries
in the region like Zambia, for example, where many forests were lost to
charcoal production. But, in the last three years, Zimbabwe’s natural
resource experts and the government estimate that more than 300,000 hectares
of indigenous forests are now destroyed annually by new, mostly small-scale
tobacco farmers, who use wood to cure the leaves.
Zimbabwe is the world’s third largest producer of tobacco – an export
industry that is attracting many. Four years ago there were about 3,500
small-scale tobacco farmers. This season there are at least 47,000 of them.
Thomas Chitate, 35, began growing tobacco 200 km north of Harare five years
ago on land seized since 2000 from white commercial farmers.
He says prices for his crop at the annual tobacco auctions this year varied
enormously from a high of $4 per kg at the start of the selling season to a
quarter that price weeks later for the same quality tobacco.
“At the moment there are quite a number of challenges that we are facing as
tobacco farmers that can stop us from using coal and continue using
firewood,” said Chitate. “One of the major problems that we are facing is
that the prices we are selling our tobacco at per kg is not that favorable
for us to go and use coal.”
He also says using coal fired tobacco barns requires fans driven by
electricity and Zimbabwe is chronically short of electrical power.
The government, tobacco companies and natural resources experts have reacted
to the sudden decline in Zimbabwe’s indigenous forests.
Chitate and other new tobacco farmers say they are receiving free seeds of
the Australian Eucalyptus, or gum trees as they are known in Zimbabwe, to
plant to replace the forests they are chopping down.
“So what they do is advise you to mix the tobacco seed and gum seed in the
same can, so you sow them at once, so they will be growing together, and
when you transplant tobacco you are also transplanting gum tree plants,” he
said.
Gum trees, agriculturalists say, need much more water than indigenous
trees – like the Msasa- but are better than nothing. Chitate says he and
many thousands of new farmers have learned much in the last few years.
“Farmers they are hardworking,” he said. “When we started growing tobacco
four to five years back we had no knowledge of how to grow the plant. But
now we are even experts.
“I remember when I started growing tobacco I was being given seed by white
commercial farmers because we couldn’t know how to produce seed,” continued
Chitate. “Now we can produce seeds on our own. We can even cure the leaves
on our own. Our major worry is the price. If the price improves, we can use
coal.”
Many of the large-scale tobacco producers who produce Zimbabwe’s famous top
quality leaf are struggling financially and industry analysts predict
Zimbabwe will soon be like Brazil where most tobacco is produced by
small-scale or peasant farmers.
Zimbabwe’s Forestry Commission is now legally requiring all tobacco farmers
to set aside land to woodlots in the hopes of reversing the damage to the
country’s natural forests.