Zimbabwe: Tobacco Selling Season Ends

Source from:  AllAfrica.com 08/31/2010

Harare - The 2010 flue-cured auction tobacco marketing season will close this Friday, ending one of the most successful tobacco seasons in recent years. At least 120 million kilogrammes are expected to be sold this season, exceeding initial projections of 70 million kilogrammes, as the agricultural sub-sector shows signs of recovery. Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board chief executive, Dr Andrew Matibiri has advised all growers who sell on auction floors to complete their grading and baling operations by Wednesday. The 2010 tobacco marketing season opened on February 16. The early opening of the flue-cured tobacco marketing season was agreed on following recommendations from stakeholders. This was meant to ease farmers' cashflow problems, reduce interest charges on their loans and reduce risk of theft and damage. TIMB was at first not able to cope with the large volumes of tobacco, which were delivered at the floors and had to increase the number of buying teams to speed up the selling process. Tobacco growers have described the 2010 selling season as more fulfilling in terms of prices being offered at the auction floors and improvement in the payment system. At the beginning of the selling season, prices were ranging from US$3 to US$4,50 per kilogramme while farmers are getting US$2 000 upon a sale with the rest being deposited into the farmer's account. However farmers started complaining of lower prices as the season was coming to an end with prices averaging between US$1,20 and US$2 per kilogramme. Nevertheless production is set to increase next season. "The flue-cured tobacco auction clean up sale for 2010 marketing season will be held on Tuesday September 28. "Depending with the volume of deliveries, the clean-up sale may be continued for more than one day, until all delivered tobacco has been sold," Dr Matibiri said. He said contract sales would continue because of the significant volumes that were still being received. "Nonetheless, contract growers are advised to finalise the grading and marketing of their tobacco," he said. With effect from Wednesday September 1 declared mixed bales and all such bales should be declared for the defect prior to sales. Mouldy bales will also be sold on the same day and they have to be declared for the defect before the sales. Dr Matibiri said the existing booking system would remain in place. "Late deliveries will need to be booked into the system before sale to ensure they are subject to the stop order system. "No appeals may be made or declared for the defect bales except for foreign matter. Any bale containing foreign matter may not be sold declared for the defect. Such bales must be returned to the grower for re-handling or destroyed," Dr Matibiri said. Enditem