The average price paid to Zimbabwe’s growers this season for their flue-cured tobacco, at US$2.96 per kg, is the same as was paid last season, according to a Zimbabwe Herald story.
Growers this season were paid US$557.1 million for 188.0 million kg of tobacco, while last season they were paid US$595.9 million for 202.2 million kg.
The Herald story seemed to suggest that the leaf tobacco sales season was still in progress, describing how tobacco farmers had ‘so far grossed…’. It said also that flue-cured tobacco production was ‘likely to miss its projected target of 205 million kgā.
An earlier story had it that a clean-up sale was to be held on August 11. But a New Zimbabwe story in the middle of August had it that sales had totaled 185.6 million kg; so clearly 2.4 million kg of sales had taken place between the New Zimbabwe and the Herald reports.
The lower crop this season came about even though the number of new growers was said to have increased by 103 percent, seed sales were said to have gone up by 331 percent and, according to the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union, the area planted to tobacco had been increased.