Farmers’ leader says Zimbabwe needs smaller crops

The president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), Wonder Chabikwa, has said that Zimbabwe needs to grow smaller crops in the future, according to a NewsDay story.

He said the CFU believed that if crops were smaller, the quality would improve and demand would increase.

Zimbabwe has had a difficult marketing season this year, reportedly due to the effects of erratic rains, poor yields and low average prices.

Chabikwa was quoted as saying the selling season was a huge disappointment because prices were too low. The average price for both contract and auction tobacco was $2.93 per kg compared to $3.17 per kg last year, a drop of 7.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association’s CEO, Rodney Ambrose, said that most farmers would not recoup what they had invested this season.