Malawi’s 2017 leaf-tobacco grower-prices have been described as ‘good’ by the Tobacco Control Commission’s (TCC) CEO David Luka, according to a story by Grace Phiri for The Nation.
“This season has run smoothly with no market interruptions as well as low rejection rates averaging between 10 and 20 percent,” Luka was quoted as saying.
“Again, prices were good this season as on average the leaf fetched $2.00 (K1,466) per kg against last year’s $1.50 (K1,099) per kg,” he said.
However, while this year’s average price might have been up on that of last season, which was poor; there seems to be a question mark over what were the prices in 2017 and 2016. The story seems to give the grower revenue for 2017 as US$212 earned from the sale of 124 million kg, which would suggest an average price of US$1.71 per kg. And the 2016 revenue on the sale of 194 million kg is given as US$275 million, which suggests an average price of US$1.42 per kg.
The average price of US$2.00 per kg cannot be explained as being the average price for one of the tobacco types because the story gave the various averages as: US$1.36 for dark fired tobacco, US$1.80 for Burley, and US$2.92 for flue-cured.
Even at US$2.00 per kg, the average price was down on that of 2013, for instance, when it stood at US$2.11 per kg, according to an APA News Agency story.