The [average] price paid to tobacco growers in Malawi this year fell by 16.5 percent from that of last year, according to a Reuters story relayed by the TMA.
The average prices for 2017 and 2018 were not given but last year the country’s Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) reported that, on average, tobacco had fetched US$2.00 per kg in 2017 against the previous year’s US$1.50 per kg.
On this basis, this year’s average price would have been about US$1.67 per kg.
However, there was a question mark over the 2017 and 2016 prices given last year. The story in which the TCC was quoted as saying the 2017 price was US$2.00 per kg, seemed to give the grower revenue for 2017 as US$212 million earned from the sale of 124 million kg, which would suggest an average price of US$1.71 per kg. And the 2016 revenue on the sale of 194 million kg was given as US$275 million, which suggested an average price of US$1.42 per kg. (The average price of US$2.00 per kg cannot be explained as being the average price for one of the tobacco types because the story gave the various averages as: US$1.36 for dark fired tobacco, US$1.80 for Burley, and US$2.92 for flue-cured.)
On this basis, this year’s average price would have been about US1.43 per kg.
The prices certainly seem to have been poor. Even at US$2.00 per kg, the average price was down on that of 2013, for instance, when it stood at US$2.11 per kg.
Auction Holdings Limited and the TCC were reported by Reuters to have issued a joint release that said revenues for 2018 had reached US$337.5 million, up from US$212.4 million in 2017. The reason why revenues rose by about 60 percent while prices fell by 16.5 percent was put down to a 90 percent increase in volume.
Even this year’s revenue looks miserly. Figures from the TCC show that tobacco revenue in 2010 stood at $410 million.
Category: Leaf
Malawi prices plummet
No tobacco contamination
Japanese Burley has been given the all-clear.
Japan Tobacco Inc. has been conducting pre-purchase tests for radioactive materials in Japanese domestic leaf tobacco since the accident at the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011.
Other tests have been carried out at each stage of its production process.
‘Prior to this year’s Japanese domestic tobacco harvest, the company has again been conducting radioactive material testing on leaf tobacco before purchase, with the support of tobacco growers,’ JT said in a note posted on its website.
‘Testing of this year’s Burley have now been completed, showing none of the leaf tobacco tested exceeded the JT standard value (Radioactive cesium: 100 Bq/kg).
‘Furthermore, JT will continue with its scheme of testing domestic leaf tobacco after purchase, and testing and monitoring a number of times at each stage of the production process.
The pre-purchase tests were carried out on 24 samples from the Tochigi, Fukushima, and Miyagi prefectures by the company’s research centre using ORTEC germanium semi-conductor detectors.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.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.Preparing for growing cuts
In an opinion piece published at thehill.com, an executive with the Center for Strategic and International Studies has called for action to ensure an orderly exit for farmers from tobacco production.
Dan Runde, a senior vice president and William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis at the Center, a think tank based in Washington, US, said millions of smallholder farmers and their families in Africa and other parts of the developing world were going to lose their livelihoods due to the coming – welcome – fall in global demand for tobacco.
This decrease would come as a result of changing technologies, such as that driving the movement from tobacco to vaping.
Runde said that a number of economically-poor countries were surprisingly dependent on tobacco for jobs and hard currency; so the ‘coming end of tobacco products’ would cause a major social and economic disruption within those societies.
‘One potential solution would be a multi-stakeholder partnership among companies including tobacco companies, NGOs, governments, universities and aid agencies to design something like a “tobacco buyout” for the developing world,’ Runde said.
‘In 2004, the US released the Tobacco Transition Payment Program, also known as the “tobacco buyout” …
‘A similar program for Africa would aid farmers’ transition to different types of agricultural products, decreasing nations’ dependence on tobacco exports and increasing the world’s food supply with incentives for smallholder farmers.’
Runde added that the disruption had already begun.Still counting the cost
Hurricane Florence is testing the resolve of farmers in the US states of North and South Carolina, who could face billions of dollars in agricultural damage while still feeling the sting from Hurricane Matthew almost two years ago, according to a story by Gary D. Robertson and Emery P. Dalesio for Associated Press.
Writing on Friday, the AP reporters said that after ‘last weekend’s’ high winds and rain that was followed by ‘this week’s’ rising rivers and standing water in fields, early farm reports were confirming pre-storm worries about losses to tobacco, cotton and corn crops.
Matthew hurt eastern North Carolina farmers in 2016, but that storm arrived in October, after most field crops had been harvested.
With Florence, most major crop harvests were still underway or just getting started. “This hurricane couldn’t have come at a worse time,” North Carolina Farm Bureau president, Larry Wooten, was quoted as saying.
North Carolina is unlikely to have preliminary crop damage estimates until the end of the next week, said state agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler. Floodwaters and blocked country roads were making it difficult for agency agronomists to check out farms.
Five of North Carolina’s top six farming counties are within the hardest-hit areas in the eastern part of the state.
“I think it’s easily going to be in the billions of dollars,” Troxler said in an interview, calling the damage “catastrophic” and “unbelievable”.Pests determine prices
Tobacco growers in Zimbabwe have started transplanting tobacco seedlings to fields under irrigation, according to a story in The Herald.
Midlands Provincial crop and livestock officer Madeliner Magwenzi said growers with irrigation facilities, mainly in the Gweru and Kwekwe districts, had undergone thorough training by Agritex and various tobacco training institutions, including the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board and the Tobacco Research Board to improve their agronomic practices.
“Irrigation tobacco is now being transplanted and we are urging tobacco growers to apply systemic aphicides and nematicides during the transplanting stage of tobacco to avoid the spread of insect transmitted diseases,’ she was reported as saying.
Magwenzi added that growers were being trained in integrated pest management because the anticipated El Nino weather conditions could be associated with more and early pests and diseases.
Tobacco farmers needed to be wary of pests while they were transplanting because the application of the wrong pesticides could lead to pest resistance, pest resurgence and environmental pollution.
Magwenzi said that the training bodies would continue to educate growers on pest management because such management affected yields and quality, and ultimately profit margins.
The Midlands Province is aiming to plant 500 ha under irrigated tobacco this season.A question of poisoning
An Italian member of the EU Parliament has asked the Commission what steps it is taking to reduce the risk of tobacco poisoning among tobacco farmers and their families.
In a preamble to her questions, Barbara Matera said that when the proper safety procedures were not adhered to, the risk of tobacco poisoning among farmers was high.
‘Zimbabwe, in particular, has experienced a large number of tobacco poisoning cases, which can be attributed to a lack of education about the condition and a lack of funding for the proper preventive equipment,’ she said.
‘This sickness also greatly affects children who help out with the harvest in rural areas.’
Matera said tobacco was Zimbabwe’s largest export product, and its largest agri-food export to the EU, before asking:
‘What is the Commission doing to promote education among tobacco exporters?’
‘What can the Commission do to provide adequate equipment and protection for farmers, especially those with children?’
The Commission is due to answer in writing.Florence hits tobacco
It will be some time before North Carolina will be able fully to assess the damage caused to tobacco and other crops by Hurricane Florence, but it is likely to be considerable.
Some of the counties harder hit by Florence are located on the southern end of North Carolina’s largest tobacco-growing region, according to a Bloomberg News story yesterday quoting Matthew Vann, assistant professor and tobacco extension specialist at North Carolina State University.
Other large tobacco-growing counties also suffered damage, but not the amount of flooding that was being reported further south, he said.
“There is a fairly wide range in terms of severity when you look specifically at the tobacco-growing regions,” said Vann, who added that it was too early to estimate total losses.
Lynda Loveland, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Farm Bureau agreed. No one was certain how many tobacco, corn, soybean, cotton, peanut and sweet potato fields were still under water or experiencing flooding, she said in an email to Bloomberg.
It would take several days properly to assess crop damage because the water still needed to recede.
Meanwhile, Kim K. LeQuire, co-owner of Kornegay Family Farms and Produce, was quoted as saying that her operation at Princeton, North Carolina, had seen at least 14 inches (36 cm) of rain as of Sunday, and was still experiencing showers.
Some tobacco leaves on tobacco plants had been blown off their stalks by the strong winds and were lying in puddle-filled fields.
Although about 70 percent of her farm’s tobacco crop had been harvested before the hurricane, the damage had affected some of its best-quality leaf.Looking to export markets
The Philippines’ leaf-tobacco industry, which has been in a slump due to higher tobacco-product excise taxes and stricter regulations on smoking, is targeting the export market, according to a GMA News story.
Data from the National Tobacco Administration (NTA), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture, has shown that tobacco production declined by 30 percent, from 68 million kg in 2013 to 48 million kg in 2017.
The New Excise Tax on Tobacco and Alcohol Products act, which was enacted in 2013, gradually increased the levies on cigarettes to P30 per pack in 2017.
The NTA has projected output down to 42 million kg this year, but it believes that exports will reverse the downtrend trend.
“I think this is the year that it will start to increase,” NTA Regulations Department officer-in-charge Rohbert Ambros told reporters on the side of a forum in Makati City on Friday.
“The particular Burley type planted in the Philippines is the best type in the world…,” he said.
“But since we are the only country left as possible sources of Burley type, our local producers will expand.”
However, domestic consumption will remain stagnant due to the higher excise taxes and a national smoking ban in public places.
