Tobacco production expected to plummet

Zimbabwe's tobacco production is expected to drop to less than half of last year's output for the coming crop season, threatening the country's single biggest source of foreign currency. The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) has warned that at best the country can only expect a tobacco yield of 75,000 to 80,000 mt from the large-scale commercial growers and smallholders, compared with last year's production of 165,000 mt. "We are very concerned," ZTA president Duncan Millar told IRIN on Tuesday. The industry employs a third of all the people working in the agricultural sector, making tobacco the single largest employer in a country with a high unemployment and inflation rate and a mass of farmworkers already out of work due to the fast-track land reform process. The ZTA report on the 2003 crop prospects said rainfall since mid-December had been "extremely patchy" with little run off into dams raising fears that "the dreaded effects of El Nino may well be at work". Growers with water resources and infrastructure for supplementary irrigation were trying with little success to keep crops moist. The ZTA said that apart from looming drought conditions, diesel deliveries were "dangerously behind" due to acute foreign exchange problems. The 2003 tobacco crop prospect also made off-shore foreign exchange borrowing difficult and the expected 20 percent of the tobacco auction proceeds promised to the Tobacco Growers' Trust had not materialised. Cash flows had dried up even before the 2002 auction sales were completed, the report said. Inputs like fertiliser were also not available, and viability was affected when growers were forced to buy abroad sourcing foreign currency at the high parallel market exchange rate. "Growers have no appetite to consider another tobacco crop under these economic conditions," the ZTA said. The association was also concerned about the uncertainty caused by continuing farm acquisitions under the government's land reform programme, thefts on farms and eviction and seizure of farms with standing tobacco crops, allegedly involving senior political leaders. Millar added that many resettled farmers had opted for traditional crops, leaving a vacuum in tobacco production. There were extensive training programmes available for these farmers but, like the commercial tobacco farmers, they needed inputs urgently. "We have the infrastructure, it was not destroyed [in the land reform process], but we need inputs to expand production back to previous levels," Millar said. Economist John Robertson told IRIN: "The incredible shortage of foreign exchange is affecting the country in every way. Already it can't pay for fuel, electricity, pharmaceutical supplies and specialist medicines so a lot of people will be deprived and it will get worse." Up to 7.2 million people in Zimbabwe are currently in need of food aid following a drought, economic collapse and the farming disruptions brought on by the land reform programme.