Due to the high costs of production, some farmers have opted for other crops like maize and soya beans

Emilia Zindi – Agriculture Editor

Tobacco farmers have been urged to continue producing the golden leaf despite the poor 2015 marketing season.

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development recently visited the tobacco auction floors.

Led by the chairman of the committee, Muzarabani South legislature Cde Christopher Chitindi, the committee expressed dismay at the low prices farmers were getting at auction floors compared to those at contract entities but expressed hope for the farmers.

With the tobacco marketing season almost halfway through, indications are that when the auction floors close for the year, the country will have sold less than the 600 million kilograms sold last year.

This has been attributed to the reduction in the production of the golden leaf due to drought.

From time immemorial, tobacco production has been a major foreign currency earner for the country and continues to be the farmers’ preferred crop as farmers have found no alternative for the golden leaf.

As a result, production of the crop has been on an upward trend as more farmers register to grow the cash crop every year.

In 2013, a total of 91 278 growers registered to grow the crop with the figure surging to 106 456 in 2014.

Total production also went up from 159 852 million kilogrammes in 2013 to 210 598 million kilogrammes in 2014 and the country earned $590 million and $600 million respectively.

Therefore, the farmers’ interest in the crop is justified. However, low prices are now characterising marketing seasons.

The 2014 /15 marketing season was no exception, a kilogramme was being bought for between $0,20 to $4,99 while at contract floors prices ranged between $4,99 and $7 when the floors opened on March 4 this year.

This saw farmers clashing with merchants, the riot police was even called to quell the situation at some instances.

Cde Chitindi urged the tobacco regulator Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) to protect farmers on pricing.

“Those figures are do not even include what the farmers would have earned. ln real terms, growers are getting nothing. If you calculate the more than $600 million earned last season through exports by merchants, vis-as-vis the prices our farmers got, you then understand why the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Agriculture is concerned at the performance of Timb,’’ pointed out a committee member, Mr Remigious Matangira.

TIMB chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri conceded that the true figure of what the country earns is roughly one and half times more than what farmers would have been paid.

This paints a gloomy picture for the farmers as they invest a lot in the production of tobacco.

The crop takes almost nine months to mature and be harvested. Seedbeds are done around June and July and up until the marketing season, farmers will be forking out large amounts of money without any returns.

Agronomists put the cost of producing a hectare of tobacco at between $6 000 and $7 000.

Due to the high costs of production, some farmers have opted for other crops like maize and soya beans. But nevertheless, the resilient ones have soldiered on.

Cde Chitindi said that tobacco farmers must be rewarded handsomely since Zimbabwe is the largest producer of the golden leaf on the continent while it is the world’s fourth-largest producer of flue-cured tobacco after China, Brazil and United States of America.

Dr Andrew Matibiri, however, said growers should not be discouraged as prices differ from year to year.

He said while the 2015 marketing season started off with farmers expressing displeasure on the low prices, this should not discourage them from growing the golden leaf as prices stabilised as the season progressed.

He said as of June 3, 62 days after sales commenced, farmers had earned a total of $428 448 447 from the total sales of 145 501 551 kilogrammes although this is slightly lower than the $500 632 849 earned during the same period last season where a total of 157 413 408 kilogrammes had been sold.

The average price has also gone up to $2,94 although it is still lower than that of last season which stood at $3,18 a kilogram during the same period.

Dr Matibiri also indicated that the increase in production was good for the country and the farmers.

“Our farmers started by producing less than 1000kgs per hectare but now a lot of them can go up to 1.9kgs to 3.5 per hectare.

This is the attitude in the right direction because the more bales a farmer brings to the floors, the more money he or she takes home,’’ he said.

He noted that farmers are already preparing for the 2015 /16 farming season with a total of 306 130 grammes of seed having been sold by May 29 2015 compared to 433 235 that had been bought during the same period last season.

“This represents a 29,3 percent decline but it is hoped that sales will pick up over the next few weeks as over 70 percent of our crop is grown under rain-fed conditions and the requisite seedbeds are usually sown after July 1,’’ he said.

Since the country does not have a large manufacturing tobacco industry, about 98 percent of all the crop is exported with about two percent being used in locally cigarette manufacturing.

The need for value-addition takes centre stage in Zim-Asset.

Currently, the merchants benefit at the expense of the farmers as they remove dirt from the crop, repackage and export.

By so doing, the merchants would have added about 30 to 50 percent value to the crop’s final export value.

It is therefore critical to speed up the implementation of the Zimbabwe/China plans to establish a multi-billion dollar tobacco processing plant.

Farmers also need to consider diversifying their farming activities with the production of other crops such as maize, groundnuts, cotton, sorghum, millet.

These crops can be grown in rotation with tobacco.