By Helen Zulu – TOBACCO has continued to be one of the most important cash crops in Zambia as it contributes significantly to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The industry currently employs more than 450,000 people and this has been necessitated by the demand for Zambian produced tobacco at international and regional markets.
The country produces some of the best tobacco varieties in the world and boasts of Virginia, barley, dark fire and oriental which are among the highest earning cash crops compared to other crops.
Tobacco growing has steadily grown in volume, over the past four years.
Much of the tobacco grown in Zambia is exported in raw form and during the 2013 farming season, this averaged at US$100 million in monetary terms.
The Tobacco Association of Zambia (TAZ) president Tim Carter said the 2013/14 marketing season had been very challenging with a surplus of tobacco on the world market and as dictated by the law of supply and demand, the prices of the crop had not been to the association’s expectations.
During this year’s marketing season, high quality burley was being sold at US$ 2.45 per kilogramme; thin leaf at US $2.10; cutters $1.90 and lugs $1.70, while the lowest grade of leaf was fetching for US $1 and the lowest grade of thin leaf was being sold at US$0.90 per kilogramme.
Tobacco production increased by 19.29 per cent to 35,669 tonnes in the 2013/2014 season compared to 139, 583 tonnes in the 2012/2013 season.
Production levels during the 2012 tobacco season, stood at 35 million kilogrammes valued at K550 million.
He said the low demand for tobacco had made it difficult for some farmers who did not have a back-up sponsor to buy their crop and have found themselves with no market.
In 2013, flue-cured Virginia was selling at an average of about K17 per kg, while barley was fetching at an average of K9.
The highest price for the Virginia flue-cured was K28.10 per kilogrammes, while that of barley was K15 as compared to 2012 in which the average price of Burley was K6.50 kilogramme and that of Virginia was K15.5.
The Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and regulatory agencies such as Tobacco Board of Zambia (TBZ) has invested in tobacco growing through setting up of revolving funds, allocation of land to mostly peasant farmers and establishment of institutions such as the Popota Tobacco Training School in Choma.
This is all in an effort to promote the growing of Tobacco in Zambia.
The support from the Government is meant to empower the farmers to be self-sustaining.
This, however, cannot be attained as there is no ready market for this “Green Gold” due to lack of local manufacturing infrastructure that would provide the ready market and add value to earn the peasant farmers higher revenue than what they are currently getting.
There is need to increase the participation of investors and buyers in the tobacco industry to encourage competition and trigger an increase in producer prices.
Agriculture and Livestock deputy Minister Greyford Monde says Government is developing the tobacco sub-sector to hugely contribute to Zambia’s foreign exchange earnings.
Mr Monde said tobacco was one of the key export crops that should be safeguarded to add value to foreign earnings for national development.
He said Government would continue to put stringent measures to boost tobacco growth to promote economic growth.
The Tobacco Board of Zambia (TBZ) chief executive officer Samson Muyembe said the tobacco industry is still faced with various challenges that are affecting its development, citing
the increase in cost of production, illicit trade (side-marketing and vending) and low producer prices.
“If the tobacco sector is to thrive, we should invite more investors or buyers to participate in marketing the commodity. This will induce competition and can trigger an increase in producer prices. And to make the tobacco enterprise a viable venture, the net-income should correlate to the rising cost of production,” he said.
Mr Muyembe said there is also need to establish a processing factory (threshing) and cigarette manufacturing entities that will add value to the commodity.
He said the benefits from such value addition could then trickle down to the primary producers who are the tobacco growers.
The Board is calling on Government to come up with a policy that will help increase production as the sub-sector has potential to contribute to economic growth.
Mr Muyembe said tobacco production has in the past remained stagnant due to various challenges, citing lack of water resources for irrigation, increase in cost of production and inadequate grower sponsorship.
“Government should employ deliberate interventions to increase small-scale sector expansion programmes that will help increase productivity. The crop creates employment for over 450,000 people through farming, regulation, marketing, warehousing, processing, agro-inputs suppliers,
transporters contributing to economic development,” he said.
Mr Muyembe said infrastructure development should be improved as it is also vital in developing of the tobacco industry.
He said TBZ has sheds, houses, farms and dams located in different parts of the country but most of them require rehabilitation.
Mr Muyembe, however, said climate change has caused uncertainty in rainfall amounts and distribution and that this has also affected the development of the tobacco industry.
He said there is need to adopt and promote the irrigation methods in the production of tobacco as it has a high yield potential and makes double cropping possible in one growing season.
“Construction of communal dams by Government will facilitate early nursery preparations and production of irrigated tobacco by small-scale farmers. Tobacco can be planted under irrigation before the onset of the rains and this can increase yield at national level,” he said.
Mr Muyembe also said that Government should consider extending the Farmer Input Support Programme to tobacco growers.
The industry is generally performing very well and has continued to be one of the best selling in terms of revenue generation compared to maize.
Zambia has vast potential to increase tobacco production because of the suitable climatic conditions that include enough land, suitable soils, water and labour.