Record crop grown

Zimbabwe’s growers produced a record volume of flue-cured tobacco during the 2017/18 season, but concern has been expressed about the toll being taken on the country’s forests, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
“In the just-ended 2017/18 season, a record 252.5 million kg of tobacco with a value of just over US$737 million went through our contract and auction floor systems,” the permanent secretary at the ministry of agriculture, Ringson Chitsiko, was reported to have said while addressing a workshop on Thursday.
“This amount of tobacco is 34 percent higher than that sold in the previous season and also surpasses the highest amount of tobacco ever sold in the country of 236 million kg in the year 2000.”
Chitsiko said the bulk of the 2017/18 crop had been produced by small-scale, communal and A1 growers who were predominantly the beneficiaries of the government’s land reform program and the recently-introduced command tobacco program, which was being administered through the Tobacco Industry & Marketing Board (TIMB).
Meanwhile, Chitsiko lamented the high levels of deforestation being caused by the use of firewood for curing tobacco.
He said as much as 300,000 ha of indigenous forests were being lost annually and that tobacco curing was responsible for about 15 percent of that loss.
“This is despite Statutory Instrument 116 of 2012 which clearly states that each tobacco grower must establish a woodlot from which they can harvest and fuel their tobacco curing requirements,” he said.
Chitsiko added that the government would work together with growers to protect natural forest resources.
Earlier this year, Zimbabwe’s Federation of Farmers Union chairman Charles Chabikwa said that tobacco farmers were threatening to boycott a reforestation levy ahead of the opening of the 2018 marketing season.
From January 2015, the government introduced a levy on all tobacco sales at a rate of 1.5 percent in the first year and 0.75 percent in subsequent years as part of a sustainability initiative aimed at funding the planting of trees to replace those burned as fuel in curing tobacco.
“The levy has been in effect for three years, with close to US$20 million collected from farmers and not a single tree seedling has been planted or sustainable tobacco curing projects embarked on,” said Zimbabwe Tobacco Association chief executive, Rodney Ambrose.
“It is our view that the levy should be removed effective this 2018 season and the funds accumulated to date first accounted for and utilised by farmer stakeholders.”
The Tobacco Industry Marketing board said of the US$19 million collected since 2015, US$4 million was in the board’s account.
Something needs to be done because, under the Sustainable Tobacco Program, from 2020, global cigarette companies will not buy leaf tobacco produced in an unsustainable manner, which includes tobacco cured using coal.
According to the Sustainable Forest Association, about one third of tobacco produced in Zimbabwe is cured using coal.