Zimbabwe: TIMB Must Intervene in Price Impasse

Source from:  The Herald 06/01/2010

Harare - THIS week's problems that led to the suspension of tobacco sales at the Zimbabwe Industry and Tobacco Auction Centre need to be tackled expeditiously. Farmers are justified to demand high prices when they market good quality crop inasmuch as the merchants are also justified to pay an equally good price for high quality leaf. Without any doubt, good quality leaf will obviously attract good prices. Events at Zitac need the intervention of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board to arbitrate and to chart the way forward. If indeed the poor prices are quality-related, then it is incumbent upon farmers to ensure they improve on the quality of the crop. In fact, this is not the first time there has been an impasse at the tobacco auction floors between farmers and buyers over prices. Even when a few white tobacco growers dominated the sector, problems over prices always arose but what is needed is to bring the two parties together to find common ground. If indeed the quality being offered by our growers is of high grade, then surely, we also find it very disturbing why merchants have decided to act in the manner they have done. The merchants must clearly spell out the reasons for paying the poor prices and if it has everything to do with the crop quality, then farmers must improve on the grading of the crop to achieve the right quality. Merchants need farmers inasmuch as the farmers need the buyers and this is exactly how it should be. Farmers and merchants need not feel shortchanged but the transaction should be beneficial to both parties. We do not want to start thinking there are some elements bent on sabotaging tobacco production in the country through low prices. Zimbabwe' tobacco sector is on the rebound and everything should be done to sustain the momentum. Farmers must be paid lucrative prices that allow them to go back to production and the prices should vary depending on the quality of the crop. For merchants to expect us to believe that our farmers are so bad that they can only produce poor quality crop is to ask too much of our indulgence. Farmers always produce different grades and we would not have been worried if the price range was from US$1 a kg for the very poor quality to US$4 for the high quality grade. Even the farmers themselves would not have boycotted selling their crop given such a scenario. Indeed the price, which is at the centre of the dispute, makes a mockery of the whole production process considering that farmers not only need to break even but to make a profit. And with other countries like Malawi paying between US$4 and US$5 per kilogramme, our farmers are justified to feel that merchants are ripping them off because there is no way the quality can suddenly go down to the level of being equated to US$1. Zimbabwe is renowned for producing high quality leaf and this has not changed because of land reform. The auction system of tobacco marketing remains the best method because it brings orderly marketing through the TIMB, which also arbitrates when disputes arise between farmers and merchants. It is a system that also saves the interest of the farmer. We ask the TIMB to look into the problems as it has always done in the past and solve them in the interest of both farmers and buyers. Calls to set up tobacco selling points in the farming areas may, however, sound noble but such a system exposes farmers to middlemen who would make their plight even worse than it is now. Enditem