Zimbabwe Tobacco Selling Season Extended

Source from:  Herald.co.zw 08/24/2009

THE final day of the 2009 tobacco selling season has been moved from Friday this week to September 4. Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri said in a statement that the TIMB board took the decision after taking into consideration views from industry stakeholders. "The board at its meeting resolved that the 2009 auction flue-cured (Virginia) tobacco selling season close on Friday September 4 with final deliveries being accepted on Thursday September 3. "All growers who sell on auction floors are therefore advised to complete their grading and baling operations by Monday August 31 at the very latest," he said. He added that because of the large volumes that are still being received, contract sales will continue until Friday September 18. "Accordingly, contracted growers are advised that final deliveries should be by Thursday September 17. "If delivery volumes are high sales may be continued beyond the final date. Dates of clean-up sales, if necessary, will be announced in due course," he said. Meanwhile, 5 699 farmers have so far registered to grow flue-cured tobacco in the forthcoming 2009/2010 season ahead of the October 31 deadline. Dr Matibiri said the registration was still low given that 32 795 farmers were registered last year. There are 62 000 registered tobacco farmers in the country although not all of them registered to grow tobacco last season. He urged growers to do so early and avoid paying hefty fines for late registration. "The board will sit to decide on the fines when we get close to the deadline," he said. Dr Matibiri said they had decentralised registration to speed up the process. "We have teams that will be going out to all the tobacco growing areas to register farmers as some were finding it difficult to come through to our offices to register," he said. The registration of growers is critical in that the farmers need to have growers' numbers used to identify them when they bring their tobacco to the floors. The growers' number is also critical in the processing of payments once farmers have sold their tobacco and when they are applying for support from tobacco contractors. Dr Matibiri urged contractors to also use the TIMB database to check growers' status. This comes in the wake of reports that most contracted farmers were this year breaching agreements by side marketing their crop. Enditem