'Flu-cured Tobacco Mop-up Sales to Continue Till December'

Source from:  herald.co.zw Bulawayo Bureau 10/09/2007

MOP-UP sales of flu-cured tobacco will continue until December 15, as farmers were still delivering the product to the three auction floors, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board said yesterday. TIMB acting chief executive, Dr Andrew Matibiri told the Business Chronicle that the board had been forced to continue conducting sales as the farmers were still delivering more tobacco to the floors. He said farmers encountered labour shortages, power problems and fuel shortages during the marketing season, resulting in the delays in tobacco deliveries. "The clean-up sales have been officially closed but we are still conducting sales up to 15 December to allow farmers to completely deliver the product to the board and the floors," said Dr Matibiri. "We realised that there is a reasonable amount of tobacco, more than 1 000 kilograms which have not been delivered and this forced us to continue with the sales." He said a total of 71,9 million kilogrammes of tobacco had been delivered as at September 28 (Day 105). He added that deliveries to the floors had been low and urged farmers to deliver the remainder of their crop before the 15th of December. "Tobacco deliveries are very low and have been low for sometime, we are urging farmers to deliver their product before 15 December because after that there won't be any extensions of the marketing season," he said. Meanwhile, Dr Matibiri has said preparations for tobacco seedbeds are going on very well, with a total of 495 kilograms of seed having been sold. "A total of 495 kilograms of seed have been sold and at a normal seeding rate this could cover 76 000 hectares of land, which is good," he said. The normal seeding rate is five grammes of seed per hectare. TIMB has set a target of 120 million kilograms for the 2008-2009 marketing season. Enditem