Tobacco Farming Transforms Zimbabweans'' Lives

Source from:  Bulawayo24 News 09/19/2017

Thomas Chakauya (not his real name) from Odzi Farm in Odzi, Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe has just sold his tobacco crop and has managed to roof the five-roomed house, which he started building two years ago. This tobacco marketing season he also managed to buy a tobacco baler and two oxen to boost his draught power.  Since he embarked on tobacco growing five years ago, Chakauya's life has improved markedly.

Chakauya completed his Ordinary Level studies at the Jechera Secondary School in the nearby resettlement area. He passed three subjects namely ChiShona language, Agriculture and Bible Knowledge and his elderly parents could not afford to raise money to enable him to re-write his examinations which would enable him to secure a place at the Magamba Vocational Training Centre in the District to pursue studies in Agriculture. His lifeline was the introduction of contract tobacco farming in the Odzi area by the Harare-based Mashonaland Tobacco Company in 2012. Since then his life was transformed from that of a poor unemployed and hopeless boy into young man whose life now has a defined direction. While a few years ago he had resigned to fate, today he has great plans for his future.

According to Chakauya's ChiManyika tradition, the last male child in a family inherits his parents' homestead and land. Being the last boy child in his family, Chakauya naturally used part of his parents' 10 hectare plot to embark on his tobacco-growing venture when he joined contract farming. Today, the piece of land is no longer sufficient and this has forced him to rent additional pieces of land from other farmers around him. He has since applied to the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement for a bigger piece of land to enable him to realise his dream of becoming one of the biggest tobacco farmers in the country.

Chakauya's success story is one of many that other tobacco farmers have experienced which has seen their lives being transformed by growing the golden leaf following the land reform programme, which Government of Zimbabwe undertook in 2000. Under the programme, whose aim was to correct the land ownership imbalances of the colonial era, Government re-distributed over 17.3 million hectares of prime land which was occupied by about 4 000 white farmers. This benefitted over 300 000 families.  Enditem