Farmers Urged to Speed up Planting of Dry Land Tobacco

Source from:  Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal 12/02/2004

The Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU )has urged tobacco farmers to complete planting of dry land tobacco by the tenth of next month in order to avoid incurring unnecessary expenses from late planting. ZCFU President Mr Davison Mugabe attributed late planting of the crop to a delay in the disbursement of tobacco funds and warned that late planted tobacco is prone to diseases such as bushy top. Mr Mugabe however, said he is confident that farmers will reach the targeted 160 million killogrammes up from last season's 68 million killogrammes for both irrigated and dry land tobacco. Recently, the agricultural bank of Zimbabwe Agribank disbursed Z$79 billion as working capital to tobacco growers while the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, TIMB availed over Z$85 billion worth of inputs under the input credit scheme. Enditem