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Edgar Vhera

Agriculture Specialist Writer

THE tobacco sector continues to rule the roost with export earnings rising 23 percent from US$450 million for the period January to June 2023 to US$553 million in the comparable period this year.

This improved performance is not in tandem with farmers’ welfare that has been deteriorating over time.

The recent half year trade statistics released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) for 2024 show that the country exported tobacco products worth US$553 092 834 up from US$450 155 264 in 2023.

In volume terms it increased 18 percent from 82 461 307 to 97 391 389 kilogrammes over the same period.

The tobacco product exports banner has partly or wholly stemmed/stripped and not stemmed tobacco, cigars, cheroots and cigarillos containing tobacco, cigarettes containing tobacco, smoking tobacco, manufactured and refuse tobacco.

Raw tobacco accounts for 91 percent of all the earnings, with cigarettes containing tobacco coming second on seven percent, a far out cry from the 30 percent target.

Zimbabwe Tobacco Growers Association (ZTGA) chairman, Mr George Seremwe said while this growth was good and encouraging, this ought to cascade to farmers welfare.

“The grower needs to get benefits out of that increase and this can be achieved through their engagements in the value-addition chain.

“Our participation in value addition can be direct or indirectly through being incorporated by merchants,” said the ZTGA chair.

He recognises that this will enhance sustainability in tobacco production and improve farmer welfare.

Farmers contend that the current beneficiaries of this increased earnings were middlemen, merchants and tobacco buyers as there was no participation of the grower in between.

The huge gap between what ends in the farmer’s pocket and exporters is a big anomaly that needs to be addressed, farmers contend.

Tobacco Farmers Union Trust (TFUT) vice president, Mr Edward Dune concurred saying the incremental value of tobacco product exports signifies that there is a lot that needs be done by industry players and Government to equip the farmers in order that they own their product from primary to the tertiary level.

Mr Dune said: “Merchants and processors grossly benefit from tobacco products export. In real business terms farmers remain peripheral when it comes to the export of tobacco products.”

He believes that as China was our main tobacco products market there was evidently need to lobby and advocate for construction of toll cigarettes manufacturing plants by Chinese government companies.

This is what we would like to see happening around 2025 so that smallholder tobacco farmer businesses escalate towards attainment of vision 2020 objective of a prosperous and upper middle-class society, he thinks.

Meanwhile, the Government is committed to ensuring that the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan (TVCTP) that seeks to create a US$5 billion tobacco industry by 2025 chiefly through increase in value addition from two to 30 percent is given impetus.

Presenting the 2024 mid-term budget and economic review, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube said: “The tobacco sub-sector performed well during the first six months of the year. To support growth in the sub-sector, Government is establishing a Tobacco Special Economic Zone (TSEZ) focused on tobacco sales and processing.”

Special economic zones (SEZ) are geographically demarcated and secured area within which multi-sectoral business investments are conducted under a liberal legislative framework enjoying certain fiscal and non-fiscal incentives. The Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (“ZIDA”) is mandated to establish and regulate SEZ in Zimbabwe.