Zimbabwe: 2009 Tobacco Selling Season Preps Advanced

Source from:  The Herald 05/04/2009

PREPARATIONS for the 2009 tobacco-selling season, which opens on Thursday next week, have gathered momentum with tobacco deliveries already trickling into the floors. Zimbabwe Industry Tobacco Auction Centre, one of three companies operating auction floors, had received 70 bales of tobacco by yesterday, its officials said. They expected deliveries to pick up next week as they had arranged transport for the tobacco to be ferried to the floors. They said farmers would pay for the transport through the stop-order system. Officials at Burley Marketing Zimbabwe and Tobacco Sales Floor said they expected deliveries to start on Monday. The floors are likely to be busy on Monday as the unemployed jostle for part-time jobs to offload the tobacco to the floors. The companies said they had conducted awareness campaigns in the tobacco-growing areas, to educate farmers. They had also helped the farmers to open foreign currency accounts with their banks. Farmers are expected to be paid in cash for part of their deliveries, with the rest being deposited in their FCAs. BMZ managing director, Mr Bruce Searles, said farmers would be paid as the money was made available on the floors. "Our payments will depend on how much money we get from the banks and merchants," he said. ZITAC public relations officer, Ms Kudzai Hamadziripi, said her company had arranged with banks to ensure favourable conditions for the farmers' payments. "We have also run courses on customer care for the smooth operations and today (Wednesday) we are going to have a mock sale to show our readiness for tobacco marketing," she said. TIMB acting chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri said they had arranged to ensure buyers transfer money to the auction floors for easy payment to the tobacco growers. "This season we are going to ensure farmers are entitled to cash for the larger part of their money, and the rest deposited into their FCAs. "There will be no restrictions when farmers withdraw their money from the banks. "Our policy is to ensure that farmers do not sleep at the floors, as happened the previous season," said Dr Matibiri. Like TIMB, Tobacco Sales Floor has also put in place, measures to avert a cholera outbreak, such as the provision of clean water. TSF managing director Mr Philemon Mangena said his company would work with the Harare City Council throughout the marketing season to ensure vendors do not sell food at the floors. "We are worried about cholera and we are going to provide cheap food at our canteen and we have opened a clinic in case of any outbreak," said Mr Mangena. He suggested that tobacco growers take less of their money in foreign currency and let the rest be deposited into the FCAs to avoid losses being robbed. Besides farm visits, TSF assured growers without FCAs the accounts would be opened as the farmers sold their crop at the floors. Some 42 million kg of tobacco is expected at the floors this season with more than 75 percent of the total 2009 crop to be sold through the contract system. Enditem