Brazil exported 195.26 million kg of leaf tobacco from January to June, down 8.82 percent from the same period in 2023, according to MDIC/ComexStat. The value, however, increased by 7.56 percent to $1.24 billion. China, Belgium, the United States, Indonesia and Egypt were the top destinations for Brazilian tobacco during the period.
In 2023, tobacco represented 11 percent of Rio Grande do Sul’s exports, according to SindiTabaco, which expects this share to increase. “The expectation is that we are going to export a smaller volume, due to the smaller size of the crop, but with revenue increasing by 10 percent to 15 percent in dollar terms,” said SindiTabaco President Iro Schuenke.
The Brazilian tobacco industry, which is concentrated in the country’s three southernmost states, is still recovering from devastating floods in May.
A survey carried out by SindiTabaco and its associate companies revealed that the storms hit 75 tobacco-producing municipalities and 1,929 farmers, with losses estimated to amount to BRL95 million.
According to Schuenke, the impact of the floods was somewhat mitigated by the high per-kilo prices this growing season (see “The Great Scramble”) and the fact that most farmers had already delivered their tobacco to the dealers due to the small crop this year.
“We regret the one-off losses of some municipalities and tobacco farmers, but we are confident that the size of the tobacco crop in the most affected areas shall remain close to the estimated projections for the 2024/2025 growing season,” he said in a statement.