De La Fargue Heads ZTA

Source from:  Zimbabwe Standard (Harare) Our Own Staff 06/22/2004

THE Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) last week elected James De La Fargue as president of the association at its 44th annual congress held in the capital. The congress also elected Andrew Feirra as vice-president for the next two terms. The two replaced Duncan Millar and Wayne Parham who came into office in June 2002. De La Fargue, a tobacco farmer in Centenary, told Standard Business that he is bringing his experience in tobacco growing to the ZTA. Besides tobacco De La Fargue is also into paprika, sugar beans, and seed maize production. He said he would strive to see that tobacco regains its status as the largest foreign currency earner in the country. Over the past four years production of the golden leaf has been declining with output ebbing from 202 million kgs in 2001 to an estimated 60 million kgs this year. "My emphasis is that we start re-growing," said De La Fargue. He said April's unveiling of a support price of $750/kg by the central bank is a recognition by the government that the industry is in dire straits. De La Fargue also said apart from the unviable exchange rate, the question of security of tenure and access to finance needs to be addressed in order to boost tobacco production. Enditem