Zimbabwe: Tobacco Industry in Mess

Source from:  The Herald 05/03/2011

EARLY this month, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board ordered a brief suspension of all deliveries of the golden leaf to the auction floors. The suspension was expected to give the floors room to clear the multitudes of farmers and their huge truckloads of tobacco. But far from it, the suspension did not go anywhere near achieving the desired result, as weeks after the interlude the farmers are still there while the trucks are still serpentining around the floors. There are even allegations of lots of shady deals involving floor personnel, guards and some unscrupulous individuals capitalising on the sorry situation of the farmers. A lot of the leaf has been lost to bad weather elements like the recent rains while some of the farmers have lost huge chunks of their revenue to transporters, re-graders and even thieves, all thanks to the long time they are taking before getting served. Of course there are times when the farmers' patience had been stretched to near-breaking point and potentially riotous situations have had to be quelled. This is not a new spectacle at the country's tobacco auction floors. Every year farmers have gone there buoyant, expecting new and better fortunes but have left nursing bruised egos. Some have vowed never to grow the crop again. But every time the lure of the crop's lavish rewards have naturally softened that resolve and instead many have even increased their hectarage. There has also been a glut of new players into the industry, who after seeing some of their own coming home with good amounts of cash, have decided to join the stampede to get rich. Almost every year the Government has had to intervene to end some impasse on prices or something related to the welfare of the farmers but that does not seem to have helped the situation either. Today the chaos at the Tobacco Sales Floor and Boka Tobacco Floors only mirrors a bigger problem than meets the eye. When TIMB temporarily suspended deliveries, they only scorched the snake but did not kill it. Prior to the implementation of the agrarian reforms, more than 240m kilogrammes of tobacco passed through the floors every year and there was a lot of order and farmers never camped there for days or weeks. Two things have literally changed - the numbers of farmers and trucks coming to the floors have ballooned while the volumes of the leaf have declined though gradually picking. In the past commercial producers would send huge but few trucks laden with more tobacco than is currently going through - something that made handling easier. Suffice it therefore to say that it may not be a matter of floors failing to cope but the human resource component grossly falling short of delivering the expected service. Maybe it is time the clearing and receiving points are increased accompanied by a massive re-orientation programme for the personnel at the floors. Boka Tobacco Floors for instance seems to have stopped the game of shooting in the dark and has fenced off entry points to administration offices and the receiving bays to allow personnel to effectively deal with farmers. Only people with growers' numbers are allowed in and this has literally given pace to their transactions. The TIMB and Agritex on the other hand must make it their prerogative to have all growers registered and record the national hectarage under the crop. This will allow them to make yield estimates that are closer to reality, which will enable buyers with offshore funding to come prepared to cover all farmers. Inaccurate yield estimates have also dealt the farmers a serious blow as buyers are coming ill-prepared only to realise that there is more of the leaf than initially indicated - a fact that forces them to spread their finances thinly to cater for all farmers. This situation literally translates into low prices for the farmers despite delivering quality tobacco in reasonable volumes. Maybe the situation could improve if there is some policy on the operations of the floors that is enforced by the government to protect farmers from this yearly abuse. In fact, it leaves many people wondering how before the agrarian revolution the floors managed to handle even larger volumes of tobacco than what is coming in at the moment. The TIMB and Agritex have not made estimates matching the situation on the ground and this has left buyers and those running the floors ill-prepared causing the congestion that has become synonymous with every tobacco selling season. Many farmers and other concerned stakeholders have suggested setting up more floors in the different tobacco growing areas of the country to decongest Harare. But this may not change anything if the real problem is not addressed. First, it has to be established why there are endless queues every year with a very high incidence of the B-class buyers ripping off farmers. There needs to be some order in the process starting from the time the farmers register to be growers to the point they bring their produce to the floors. What is worrisome is the fact that the more the farmers remain stuck at the floors the more the chances of getting very little from their produce. Some transporters are reportedly asking the farmers to pay them what they would have earned if they were doing their daily business elsewhere. The farmers do not have the cash at hand but when they finally make it to the floor, less than a quarter of the earnings would have been chewed off already. Tobacco floors need to hold intensive training programmes for their personnel while refurbishing their equipment or even replacing with new to add speed to their activities. It may only be logical for government to first assess the capacity of floors to handle tobacco sales before the marketing season opens - those who do not meet the standards should then be stopped from operating. In the end many farmers will make the difficult decision of abandoning tobacco despite its lucrative nature and go for even less paying but easy to market crops. This means that it is not the farmer alone who will lose out revenue wise but the economy as well. The goings-on in the past few seasons have shown that tobacco has the potential to improve the socio-economic realities of many farmers so its production and marketing should have minimal hassles to attract more players and consequently up volumes. Enditem