Zimbabwe's Crop And Earnings Fall Short

Source from:  Tuesday, October 31, 2006 tobaccoreporter.com 11/02/2006

Final figures from Zimbabwe's Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TMIB) indicate that this year the country sold 55,466,689 kg of flue-cured tobacco at auction for about US$110.7 million, according to a report on thezimbabwean.co.uk. Last year it sold 73,376,990 kg for about US$120 million. The report quoted the TIMB's deputy general manager, Godfrey Bhuka, as telling The Zimbabwean that production had been negatively affected by the government's agrarian reform program. Banks were reluctant to fund farmers because there "were too many risks", which mainly affected large-scale farmers "where the quality production comes from". Enditem