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Tag: Zambia

  • Zambia Tobacco Sales Near $105M Through 11 Weeks

    Zambia Tobacco Sales Near $105M Through 11 Weeks

    Zambia’s tobacco industry generated more than $104.9 million in cumulative sales through Week 11 of the 2026 marketing season, according to the Tobacco Board of Zambia. Farmers sold 51.96 million kg of tobacco during the period, led by 44.45 million kg of flue-cured Virginia tobacco, which generated $87.34 million at an average price of $1.97 per kg. Air-cured Burley tobacco sales totaled 7.51 million kg, earning $17.63 million at a higher average price of $2.35 per kg.

  • BAT Zambia Defends ‘Utter Hypocrisy’ Criticism

    BAT Zambia Defends ‘Utter Hypocrisy’ Criticism

    British American Tobacco (BAT) was criticized for lobbying against elements of Zambia’s proposed Tobacco Control Bill, which includes restrictions similar to those already in place in the UK, home to BAT’s global headquarters. According to The Guardian, a letter from BAT Zambia to government ministers requested delays or amendments to proposed bans on advertising and sponsorship, reductions in the size of graphic health warnings, and the removal of restrictions on flavored tobacco products. The company also suggested lighter penalties for industry violations.

    Health advocates, including campaigner Master Chimbala, called the company’s stance “utter hypocrisy,” noting that similar measures have long been enforced in the UK. The draft bill would expand Zambia’s regulations to include e-cigarettes and require graphic warnings covering 75% of packaging.

    In response, BAT Zambia said it supports “progressive regulation” and participates in the legislative process in line with local law, emphasizing the need to balance public health goals with concerns about illicit trade and market realities.

    “The company participates in the country’s legislative process in line with the relevant frameworks which provide for stakeholder participation in policymaking,” a BAT Zambia spokesperson said. “We advocate for progressive regulation to achieve intended public health goals, while acknowledging the spectrum of rights and obligations on industry, consumers, and related stakeholders.”

  • Zambian Chief Summons Officials for Concerns Over Tobacco Farmers

    Zambian Chief Summons Officials for Concerns Over Tobacco Farmers

    Paramount Chief Mpezeni called the Tobacco Board of Zambia and the Eastern Provincial Administration to his palace on September 19, seeking explanations for issues affecting local tobacco farmers. According to the Zambian Observer, many farmers who sold tobacco under contracts with companies such as Haven Tobacco Company and Tobacco Trading Company have either not been paid or had their tobacco uncollected.

    Mpezeni expressed deep concern over the plight of farmers, some of whom are reportedly sleeping in the cold or even in toilets while trying to sell their tobacco in Chipata City. He has urged government representatives and farmers to hold a meeting at Ephendeni Palace to resolve these payment and procurement issues.

  • Brand ‘Zambia’

    Brand ‘Zambia’

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Operating in the shadow of its tobacco powerhouse neighbor, Zimbabwe, Zambia is trying to make a name for itself on the global market.

    By George Gay

    When researching leaf tobacco production in Zambia, it is almost de rigueur to seek an answer to the question of why the country grows a Virginia flue-cured crop only about one-eighth the size of that produced by its neighbor Zimbabwe. After all, Zimbabwe has a land mass only about 50 percent of that of Zambia, and the populations of the two countries are comparable.

    One of the answers normally given to this question is that tobacco has been prioritized in Zimbabwe because it is a hugely important contributor to the country’s GDP and foreign exchange earnings whereas it has been less important in Zambia, where mining plays a dominant role. Of course, this explanation seems to beg the question since both countries are rich in minerals and both have soils and climates ideal for growing tobacco, but that doesn’t mean the explanation is wrong. Presumably, sometime in the past, those who took control of the region of Africa now made up of Zambia and Zimbabwe decided, for whatever reasons, on where they should prioritize mining and agriculture, and those priorities remain in force today because change, even if desirable, is sometimes impossible or at least difficult to bring about.

    Decades ago, a tobacco grower of my acquaintance told me that Zambia struggled to attract international tobacco buyers who, after spending months in Zimbabwe each year, were reluctant to move on to Zambia to buy what was then a small crop, and without the prospect of a significant number of buyers showing up, there was no viable way of increasing the size of the crop and attracting more buyers …. If it wasn’t a catch-22 situation, it was close to it.

    Zambia produces about 30 million kg of flue-cured and 8 million kg of burley annually.

    Limits to Production

    Albert van Wyk

    Ironically, when significant change did come about in Zambia, it came in the form of a boost from Zimbabwe. Zambia’s current level of tobacco production can be traced back to the 2002–2003 season and the arrival of Zimbabwean growers whose land had been taken from them under compulsory acquisition policies brought in from 2000 under former President Robert Mugabe’s land redistribution policies. From that point on, apart from a hiccup that occurred about 10 years ago, production increased steadily.

    And contrary to the impression that might have been given above, tobacco comprises an important business in Zambia, which produces flavorful flue-cured and burley between September and April in its southern, eastern and central provinces, about 70 percent of it rain-fed and 30 percent under irrigation. It is clearly important in rural areas and, also, less obviously, in urban areas, in part because it helps to reduce population drift to the cities. Tobacco is produced by about 24,000 growers, and about 270,000 people depend on its production for their livelihoods. Most of its leaf is processed locally by Tombwe Processing and exported, mainly to China and Japan, for use in cigarette manufacture, earning much-needed foreign exchange.

    But having made the case for the importance of tobacco, it must be said that unless something unexpected occurs, it is unlikely that Zambia will in the future significantly increase the size of its tobacco crops from their current annual levels of about 30 million kg of flue-cured and 8 million kg of Burley. And here, at least, the reasons are not difficult to discern.

    Albert van Wyk, a Zambian tobacco grower for 40 years and the general manager of the Tobacco Association of Zambia (TAZ), told me during a telephone conversation in April that “compliance,” specifically its environmental aspects, limited the amount by which the tobacco crop could be expanded. To comply with buyer and manufacturer requirements, it was necessary for growers to maintain sustainable woodlots to produce the fuel they needed for curing, and these currently could only just keep abreast of current production; they could not be expanded easily and quickly to allow for a major increase in production. The only other option would be to move to using coal for curing additional flue-cured, but coal, which is produced in Zambia, raises its own environmental concerns, is relatively expensive, and its use might be phased out soon.

    The TAZ clearly takes seriously issues of compliance, which go far beyond the maintenance of woodlots, and van Wyk told me that the industry, which is fully private, liked to think of itself as self-regulating within the laws of the land. Currently, it was trying to establish “Brand Zambia” in the market, something that would put it ahead of Malawi and Zimbabwe. In fact, not only is tobacco production self-regulating in Zambia, but it is also self-propagating. Perhaps reflecting the relatively lowly status of tobacco growing in the country, there is no facility to train growers, so it keeps going on an informal apprenticeship scheme whereby established growers teach and mentor younger growers, as well as farm hands, who need to be skilled.

    Tobacco cultivation is clearly important in rural areas and, also, less obviously, in urban areas, in part because it helps to reduce population drift to the cities.

    Compliance

    So far, in talking about why it is unlikely that production will increase significantly in Zambia, I have ignored the elephants in the room—grower tobacco prices, efficiencies and profitability, which these days are connected to “compliance” because compliance, in all its guises, doesn’t come cheaply. Generally, prices on Zambia’s tobacco market, which runs from April to August and which are based on contracts, are not at a level to inspire major production increases.

    Having said that, this year’s crops are of good quality and are short in a year when all the major flue-cured and burley producer countries have come up with smaller-than-expected quantities of these types, so prices are likely to be better. In fact, van Wyk, who was in the process of selling his tobacco when I spoke with him, said that Zambia’s growers were expecting increases of $0.40 per kilogram and hoping for $0.80 per kilogram. “In a year of a shortage, I think things have to shift,” he said. “If they aren’t going to shift now, when will they shift?”

    Nevertheless, van Wyk is nothing if not practical, and he acknowledges that even though prices might not be as high as growers would like them to be, tobacco is still a better value crop than others. Tobacco, he said, would pay a grower’s medical bills and school fees and on a community-wide basis allow the building of schools and other social facilities. And in this sense, he is politely dismissive of the representatives of nongovernmental organizations who show up from time to time promoting moves away from tobacco and into other crops and business activities. And it is not hard to see his point. Tobacco growers such as van Wyk didn’t come down with the last shower of rain; they have been around for a long time. During their careers, they, like the rest of us, will have been looking for ways to make more money by doing less. They will have been down these other avenues, so the fact that they are still in tobacco tells its own story.

    Sealed Systems

    Van Wyk is politely dismissive, too, of the sorts of generational smoking bans being debated in the U.K. and discussed elsewhere. He sees such bans as playing a part in shifting the tobacco business from what he calls the honest trade to the dishonest trade. Again, it is easy to see his point and, indeed, wonder whether the problem doesn’t run deeper than he suggested. Is this just a demand issue or a supply issue also? Is the line in the sand between the honest and the dishonest trade maintained even if noncompliant tobacco is available in a year such as this, when there is a shortage of the main cigarette tobacco types? Is there no crossover? It seems difficult to imagine that there are two sealed systems working alongside each other—one involving sustainably grown compliant tobacco sold through proper channels and used in licit manufacture and the other comprising noncompliant tobacco grown unsustainably, sold through opaque channels and winding up with illicit manufacturers.

    The reason why this question must be asked goes back to the fact that Zambian growers are hoping for good prices this year but are not sure of them. Why not? If the two closed systems described above were in operation, prices would be bound to rise in a year of shortage, especially since licit manufacturers do not keep stocks as big as once was the case. The fact that higher prices are not guaranteed seems to suggest that there is some crossover—that noncompliant tobacco enters the mainstream, something that would clearly put downward pressure on prices—as well as call into question the very idea of compliance, sustainability and traceability.

    Of course, the above comprises just hypothetical questions, but it is worth giving some thought to them because there is another reason why the trade in noncompliant leaf might be more invasive than otherwise imagined—the permeability of some borders. Recently, people in the U.K. and some other countries have had to consider more closely than in the past the legacies left behind by colonialism. As you would expect, the reactions to such reflections have varied, at least in the U.K., but only the willfully obdurate cling to the claim that there have been no negative outcomes. Some of these outcomes are now widely discussed, though, often, the underlying reasons for them are not: for instance, the “creation” of African nations by the drawing by non-Indigenous people of boundaries seemingly heedless of the historical understandings and sensitivities of the way in which Indigenous people ordered their lives. And, certainly, this seems to be the case with Zambia, which has borders with eight countries, including Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Given the circumstances under which these borders were decided upon, I would be reluctant to use the word “smuggling” when talking about some of the cross-border movement of leaf tobacco; perhaps “osmosis” would be a better word.

    George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.
  • Technology Facilitates Regulation in Zambia

    Technology Facilitates Regulation in Zambia

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    The Tobacco Board of Zambia (TBZ) has captured over 40,000 farmers on its electronic registration and monitoring system introduced two years ago, reports Zambia Daily Mail.

    In 2020, the TBZ introduced the Bright Leaf System to regulate the production, buying and selling of tobacco in the country.

    TBZ information communication technology officer Maximillian Kasonde said the system has brought relief to the board in that it is now aware not only of the exact number of farmers in the country but also of their identities and their locations.

    “It has made the marketing and registration system easier,” Kasonde said.

  • Zambia Expects $92 Million From Tobacco

    Zambia Expects $92 Million From Tobacco

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Zambia expects to increase its tobacco harvest by a quarter and generate $92 million from leaf sales at the close of the marketing season in September, reports Farmers Review Africa.

    By Aug. 12, the country’s tobacco growers had sold 35 million kg of leaf through the approval sales floors against projected sales of 33 million kg. Flue-cured Virginia accounted for 27 million kg and burley represented 6 million kg of the leaf sales.

    Agriculture Minister Reuben Mtolo told the International Tobacco Growers Association’s Africa Congress in Lusaka on Aug. 24 that the sector had performed well during the season despite various headwinds coupled with low investment.

    He said the government is committed to creating an investment-friendly environment.

    “The government is now in the process of enacting a new legal framework for the industry that will bring about effective regulation and foresee improved private stakeholder participation across the tobacco value chain,” said Mtolo.

    Zambia’s eighth national development plan emphasizes crop diversification and increasing profitability among all actors within the value chain.