Zimbabwe: Vital to Boost Tobacco Yield

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) 11 September 2007 09/13/2007

ZIMBABWE'S tobacco growers - most of them having only started production of the crop within the last few years - look as though they will meet or surpass the target of 77 million kilogrammes and comfortably exceed last year's production. Tobacco is critical to Zimbabwe's well-being and did much to create the modern economy we see today. It is essential that the growth in production and sales we saw this year continues, or even accelerates, next year. Many of the new farmers who benefited from land reform were unfamiliar with the crop, lacked expertise, and were very nervous about growing it. As a result, production fell. At the same time, the whole industry - from banks to the processors - took far too long to switch the system from one where most of the tobacco was produced by a few hundred large-scale growers to one where the crop came from tens of thousands of small and medium growers. Those problems have now been largely fixed. Those who have mastered tobacco production have made some serious money this year, even with indifferent rainfall and the usual problems faced in high-inflationary times of obtaining all required inputs in time. They have discovered why tobacco was known as the "golden leaf". It should now be possible to double production from the levels of the last season, getting the farmers who have gained experience from modest plots of the crop to significantly increase their production while bringing in more of the new farmers. But, while we are certain the farmers are ready for this expansion, we believe that urgent work is required to ensure all inputs, especially fertilizer and finance, are ready in time. Initial predictions of the weather suggest that the coming season will be considerably better than the last when it comes to rainfall, meaning that so long as the farmer knows what he or she is doing and is planting tobacco in a traditional tobacco area, there is not much of a gamble involved in providing the inputs. We would hope to see more contract farming, the system that Brazil, the world's largest exporter, largely adopted when that country went through land reform and switched from large-scale to small-scale producers. If Zimbabwe can produce a significantly larger crop this season, many of the economic problems the country faces will evaporate, or at least be ameliorated. In fact, if tobacco can regain its former glory then Zimbabwe can laugh at sanctions. Traditional gold, cotton, horticulture, and base minerals have already been joined by platinum and diamonds in the last few years, keeping the country afloat. With tobacco back at the top of the export list, foreign currency shortages will become considerably less severe and Zimbabwe will be well on the way to economic recovery, to the benefit of all. That is why it makes sense to have a special effort this season to make sure those farmers ready to produce can do so, even if it means tighter belts for the next few months while we wait for the new and larger crop to come in. Enditem