Tobacco Planting Preps Delayed

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) Leonard Makombe 09/16/2005

CRITICAL fertiliser and diesel shortages are threatening to derail efforts to prop up production of tobacco, Zimbabwe's major foreign currency earner, for the 2005-06 season. Indications on the ground show that most growers are two weeks behind schedule in terms of transplanting seedlings while in some instances the land is yet to be prepared. Reports from the Agriculture Research and Extension Services (Arex) suggest that diesel shortage has affected both land preparation and transplanting. "The overall situation at the moment is not very good because fuel is a problem and farmers are failing to transplant. "Transplanting of seedlings started on September 1, but reports have shown that the process has started at a very slow pace," said an agronomist from Arex. Transplanting of the dryland crop, that is tobacco grown under irrigation - which accounts for about 60 percent of the country's total production - starts at the beginning of September. Preparations had also been affected by the snail's pace at which some farmers were preparing their land. The problems paint a gloomy picture of the state of the country's major foreign currency earner. A report from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board says the shortage of foreign currency was affecting operations. It was ironical that the country's cash cow, in terms of foreign currency earnings, was itself reeling from the shortage of hard currency. "Major challenges that have been faced in growing tobacco included lack of capacity, tillage problems, shortages of various inputs, lack of timely preparation, transport, fuel shortages and labour problems. "This generally contributed to the decline in production to about 69 million kg in 2004 from a record production of 237kg million in 2000. "Funding of tobacco inputs has been one of the major challenges faced by a number of growers. Chemicals - (in particular) seedbed chemicals, land chemicals and fertilisers - are in short supply due to the shortage of foreign currency," said TIMB. Tobacco is popular with both small-scale and large scale commercial growers. However, it requires expensive inputs, a long preparation period and high levels of technical skills. The 2005-06 tobacco season started on a positive note with Government and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe releasing $150 billion towards seedbed inputs and land preparation. This has also been supported by the TIMB-run Tobacco Input Credit Scheme (TICS). TICS is jointly co-ordinated by TIMB and Agribank and was targeting at least 60 000 hectares in 2005-06 under tobacco cropping, up from the 56 000 planted in the 2004-05 season. Contractors are also expected to play a major role in supporting production. In 2004-05 they supported 30 percent of total output. Enditem