Zimbabwe: More Farmers Turn to Tobacco

Source from:  The Herald  05/27/2013

The tobacco grower base continues to grow with 90 638 farmers having registered for the 2013 marketing season. This is an improvement on the 68 604 growers that had registered during the same period last year. Of the total registered farmers for this year 27 799 are new growers.

According to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, 74 083 of the 90 638 registered farmers have delivered their crop for sale since the beginning of the season in February.

Small-scale farmers continue to dominate tobacco production with communal and A1 farmers accounting for 36 000 and 38 000 registered growers respectively.

The balance is made up of 8 512 small-scale commercial farmers and 6 885 A2 farmers.

Mashonaland West province has the highest number of growers at 28 676 farmers followed by Mashonaland Central with 28 305 farmers, Manicaland 16 649 farmers, Mashonaland East 15 971 farmers, Midlands 640 farmers, Masvingo 395 farmers and Matabeleland two.

Farmers growing tobacco have been on the increase every season over the past few years following the introduction of multiple currencies as prices being offered are stable and attractive.

TIMB chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri said the deadline for farmers intending to register as tobacco farmers is October 31 each year.

"The deadline for tobacco farmers' registration is October 31 of each year but there will be room for late registration with a fine of US$10 until December 31 and US$40 from January," he said.

In terms burley tobacco a total of 1 319 farmers have registered to grow the crop this season and of these 918 are communal farmers. Enditem