High Output Expected As Tobacco Selling Season Opens

Source from:  The Standard 01/29/2012

THE 2012 tobacco selling season opens on February 15 amid expectations from stakeholders of high output and quality crop. The tobacco would be auctioned at four floors Tobacco Sales Floor, Boka Tobacco Floors, Millennium Tobacco and Premier Tobacco. Players in the industry told Standardbusiness they hope for a "bit more in terms of national yield and better quality tobacco". Zimbabwe Progressive Tobacco Farmers Union president, Nicholas Kapungu, told Standardbusiness that the organisation is optimistic ahead of the selling season, as all members will sell the crop to one buyer, Star International Tobacco, whom they have agreed with on prices. "We agreed with them on the prices before we planted our tobacco and the price is good," he said. Kapungu said the union had secured the buyer to avoid congestion which characterised floors the previous selling season. Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (Timb) has already promised it has done its work and the coming selling season would be congestion- free. Kapungu said his union has a membership of 21 000 farmers, but managed to secure inputs for 5 000 farmers. Each of the farmers was given inputs for one hectare. Kapungu said his union had organised for trucks to deliver tobacco to the floors from the various districts. Every season, farmers complain of the high transport costs to the floor, with growers saying the transport operators were milking them of their hard-earned cash. On burley tobacco, Kapungu said his union had identified a foreign buyer for their crop starting next year. The buyer will provide inputs for burley. The move to secure a foreign buyer for burley is a major breakthrough in the tobacco industry as growers have been facing problems after the closure of Burley Marketing Zimbabwe (BMZ), an auction floor that was dedicated to the marketing of burley tobacco. Burley tobacco growers who owned BMZ sold the floor to Savannah Tobacco, a cigarette manufacturing company, in 2010. Timb has already said that it expects buyers to exhaust the local crop before it resorts to imports. Tobacco production is on the increase buoyed by favourable prices on the auction floor but it has not yet reached yesteryears' peak. In the 2011 season, 132,4 million kg were sold below the 170 million kg output which had been projected by Timb. It raked in US$361,5 million compared to the US$355,6 million realised in 2010. At its peak, Zimbabwe produced 236 million kg in 2000. Enditem