Zimbabwe Tobacco Output Seen Rising, Even as Seed Sales Decline

Source from:  By Brian Latham Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) 09/05/2008

Zimbabwe may double production of tobacco next year, even after seed sales declined by 10 percent, the state-owned Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board said. The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, which represents most farmers in the southern African nation, said seed-sales data isn't sufficient to determine a forecast of output because large quantities are smuggled to neighboring countries. About 434 kilograms (957 pounds) of seed has been sold this year, compared with 482 kilograms in 2007-08, the Harare-based TIMB said. "The amount of seed sold this year is sufficient to produce 130 million kilograms of tobacco" next year, Andrew Matibiri, chief executive officer of the board, said by phone today. Production this year may total 65 million kilograms, the Sunday Mail reported on July 21. Zimbabwe is the world's sixth-largest exporter of high- grade flue-cured tobacco after Brazil, India, the U.S., the European Union and Argentina. Production has plunged since 2000, when the country was the world's No. 2 producer after Brazil. That year, President Robert Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks deprived of land during colonial rule. The policy slashed agricultural output. Tobacco growers may reduce plantings this year because of shortages of fertilizer and diesel, ZTA Chairman Andrew Ferreira said by phone from Harare today. "There are early indications that farmers are cutting back on hectarage, certainly of the early irrigated crop," he said. Zimbabwe plants an early crop, irrigated with pumped water, in September, and a second one in November to coincide with the start of the rainy season. The state-owned Tobacco Research Board and the Zimbabwe Tobacco Seed Association, a cooperative, are southern Africa's only two large-scale producers of tobacco seed. While exports of seed were strictly controlled in the past, there are indications that seed is increasingly smuggled to tobacco producers in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, according to the ZTA. Enditem