Fuel Shortages Haunt Tobacco Preps: ZATG

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) November 17, 2005  11/18/2005

THE Zimbabwe Association of Tobacco Growers is looking at ways to secure fuel for farmers as the sector continues to lag behind in terms of preparation for the next season. ZATG chairperson Mr Julius Ngorima confirmed that they were eager to talk to some of the stakeholders in the fuel industry and see how they would get the commodity to avert disaster in the coming season. "As ZATG we would like to seek audience with the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe and the Department of Agricultural Research and Extension Services and see how we would be able to get fuel. "Only a few farmers have been able to plant their crop at the moment and this has been so because of a number of reasons including the shortage of fuel. "One of the problems that the farmers are facing at the moment is the non-availability of water since there was a drought this year," said Mr Ngorima. He added that it was imperative that the farmers get all the critical inputs, such as fertiliser, fuel and chemicals, in time as they would not get the chance to prepare when the rainy season starts. "What we are encouraging the farmers to do at the moment is to be patient and continue with preparations as we have been assured that we are likely to have normal rains this season," he added. Stakeholders in the tobacco industry have been working on ways to make sure that the season does not become a disaster in terms of preparations. Farmers have complained that preparations for the 2005/06 season were lagging behind and that some of the proposed mitigatory measures were "too little, too late". Zimbabwe's tobacco output has been sliding for the last three consecutive seasons from 200 million kg in 2001 to 69 million kg in 2004. A marginal increase of around 5 million kg was registered this year but this may have been a false start as the country's total output may slump further in 2006 if the current bottlenecks are not addressed. Enditem