Zimbabwe: Tobacco Industry Recovery in Doubt

Source from:  Financial Gazette (Harare) 01/19/2010

THE Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) has cast doubts on the recovery of the industry this year, warning that threats by the government of the ejection of one third of its 150 remaining members from their farms could spell disaster for any positive prospects. ZTA president, Kevin Cooke said the effects of this "chaos" and mounting threats on a sector that produces about 10 percent of the world's flue cured tobacco exports would not only dampen farmers' spirits but severely undermine the recovery of Zimbabwe's agro-based economy. Already, disturbances on farms have seen tobacco output suffering massive knocks in output in the past decade to 45 million kilogrammes in 2008 from 237 million kilogrammes in 2000 when President Robert Mugabe's government embarked on controversial land reforms. The programme resulted in the resettlement of at least 300 000 under-capitalised peasant farmers on land previously owned by white commercial farmers. "Of our 150 commercial members, 50 are under threat at the moment, one third of the major tobacco farmers could be off the land before we reap this season," said Cooke, writing in the 2009 forth quarter edition of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Today. He said realisation of the 65 million kilogrammes of the golden leaf that farmers were expecting to harvest this season would heavily depend on confidence building measures by government to enable the troubled industry get on with production. "Give us all the opportunity to go forward and this (country) will, in short order, once again, be the breadbasket of Africa. If however, we continue to flounder with no title to land and no positive way forward, we simply slide into obscurity. For what was the finest producing nation of flavour tobacco on the planet, that is criminal," said Cooke. "The question that needs answering, which we will know the answer to before April sales is what do we want as a nation, do we want production and are we serious about rebuilding this shattered economy or do we want chaos and is politics still our only priority?" the ZTA president added. ZTA is the country's largest tobacco organisation. In a space of a decade, Zimbabwe has declined from being a powerful tobacco growing nation to one of the weakest with dire implications on the state of the agro-driven nation. The slide in the country's tobacco output has forced leading merchants to consider other options in southern Africa were they can source the golden leaf. But industry statistics indicate that output could increase this year, riding on confidence building measures introduced by the inclusive government. Enditem