Growing rewards

More than 124,000 Zimbabwean farmers have so far registered to grow flue-cure tobacco during the 2018-19 season, up by about 47 percent on the more-than 84,000 who had registered by the same time last year, according to a story by Elita Chikwati for The Herald.
At least 30,000 of the farmers who have signed up to grow flue-cured in 2018-19 are first-time registerees.
According to Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) figures, all Zimbabwe’s tobacco growing provinces except Masvingo have registered an increase in registrations.
The figures show that by September 20, 124,220 farmers had registered to grow flue-cured tobacco for the 2018-19 season up from the 84,688 who had registered by September 20, 2017.
Mashonaland Central, with 49,838 registrations (up from 31,991) has so far recorded the highest number of registered growers.
According to Chikwati, the increase in registrations has been brought about largely by the need for each farmer to obtain a grower number, without which he cannot benefit from foreign currency incentives.
The government in 2016 implemented an export incentive scheme, which rewards growers for helping to generate foreign currency.
Before the introduction of the incentive scheme, some farmers used to sell their tobacco using other farmers’ grower numbers.