Tobacco growers have planted 55,170 hectares of leaf for the 2023–2024 season in Zimbabwe, reports The Sunday Mail.
Last year, the country’s tobacco farmers planted 57,411 ha, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), which regulated the trade in Zimbabwe.
This year’s figure includes 19,202 hectares of irrigated tobacco and 35,968 of dryland tobacco.
Meanwhile, 112,447 growers have registered with the TIMB.
Zimbabwe’s tobacco growers delivered nearly 300 million kg this year, which are currently being processed, sorted and exported. As of November, the country had exported more than 210 million kg of tobacco worth more than $1 billion.
As part of the government’s Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan, Zimbabwe aims to build a $5 billion tobacco industry by 2025.