Zimbabwe: Coal Shortage Hampers Tobacco Curing

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) 5 March 2008 03/06/2008

Tobacco growers have had to improvise in their curing processes as they continue to face the shortage of coal despite an earlier undertaking by Hwange Colliery that it would improve production. The 2008 selling season opens next month. Tobacco Industry Marketing Board's acting chief executive, Dr Andrew Matibiri said the major constraint facing farmers had been the unavailability of coal. "Farmers are getting some supplies but these have not been enough, but more importantly coal has become very expensive for them," he said.Dr Matibiri said tobacco farmers had resorted to using firewood as an alternative. Others have coal left over from the previous season and are making use of it. In addition, he said, the erratic supply of electricity had also worsened the situation. "In some areas farmers are unaffected because they do not experience a lot of load shedding but in some areas like Trelawney farmers can go for up to 20 hours without power," he said. The situation comes three months after Hwange Colliery Company had indicated that it was working towards increasing coal supplies. The coal miner also suspended supplies of coal to merchants saying it would deal directly with farmers, or any other end user. At the time the company said the suspension of coal supplies to merchants had been necessitated by the need to curb underhand dealings that were being perpetrated by merchants and pushed the price of coal higher. Despite the concerns over fuel to cure the tobacco, TIMB crop assessment reports for December indicated that the irrigated crop that was currently being cured was of good quality. As of January, Mashonaland Central had the highest hectarage of 3 837ha under the irrigated crop followed by Mashonaland West with 3 224ha, Mashonaland East with 2 226 ha and Manicaland with 620 ha. At least 9 907ha was transplanted under the irrigated crop across the country representing 16,5 percent of the targeted hectarage of 60 000 hectares. A total of 48 123ha of tobacco was transplanted under dryland across the country representing 80,2 percent of the targeted hectarage. Mashonaland Central planted the biggest hectarage under the dryland crop of 15 883ha followed by Mashonaland West with 13 924ha, Mashonaland East with 11 834 ha, Manicaland with 6 229 ha, Masvingo with 60 ha and Midlands with 193ha. Mashonaland Central planted the biggest cumulative hectarage inclusive of area under dryland and irrigation of 19 720 ha representing 32,8 percent, followed by Mashonaland West with 17 148 ha representing 28,5 percent and Mashonaland East with 14 060 ha, representing 23,4 percent. Manicaland had 6 867 ha which translate to 11,4 percent, while Midlands had 193 ha representing 0,3 percent and Masvingo had 60 ha, representing 0,1 percent. Enditem