Zimbabwe: Tobacco Farmers Should Be Self-Reliant

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) April 28, 2006 04/29/2006

THE scrapping this week of the tobacco support price system by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is a wake up call to tobacco farmers who should take their business seriously and not wait for Government support everytime. The Government's objective in making this move is clearly to separate opportunists from genuine tobacco farmers. And the message is clear to all: Produce a quality tobacco crop and get rewarded, if you can't, quit trying. This was underlined by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Dr Gideon Gono, in his brief address to tobacco farmers during the opening of the 2006 tobacco selling season at the Tobacco Sales Floor this week. Dr Gono was being forthright in telling the farmers to stop relying on Government support but to work hard on producing quality crop, be innovative and self-reliant. Tobacco farmers have for the past few years benefited immensely from the Government's support price system, which rewarded farmers across the board -- good quality and poor quality tobacco growers alike. The support was meant to give a leg up to tobacco farmers, most of whom are smallholders and beneficiaries of the land reform programme. The Government wants our tobacco farmers -- particu larly the small holders -- to move out of the dependency syndrome trap and produce their crop to acceptable quality standards. This is exactly the route taken by the world's largest tobacco producer, Brazil. That country's smallholder tobacco farmers are today famous for their quality tobacco. This latest development by the central bank has caught tobacco farmers unawares, coming as it did, on the eve of the opening of the 2006 selling season. Opportunists, who have been in the tobacco growing business solely to take advantage of the support price and other Government facilities availed to the farmers, are as a result crying foul. Some smallholder tobacco farmers feel that scrapping the support price system is tantamount to killing tobacco farming. However, we are prompted to believe that these are opportunist tobacco farmers. They have in the past been holding on to their crop and exerting pressure on the Government to increase the support price. The same farmers are ignoring the huge incentive being offered by the Government. Growers, who sell their tobacco before July 31 this year, will be paid a 35 percent bonus of the total value of their crop. Tobacco is sold in United States dollars and farmers are paid in local currency at the ruling exchange rate of US$1 to Z$99 201,58. If the exchange rate falls, it will bring significant benefits to tobacco farmers as both the total value and bonus will increase. We see the scrapping of the tobacco support price system as an incentive that should spur farmers to aim for quality crop. The benefits, as learnt from the Brazilian experience, will be realised in the medium to long- term. We therefore back the Government's advice that those who feel the heat in the tobacco barns is too hot to bear should simply quit. Enditem