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Herald Reporter
THE 2020 tobacco marketing season officially came to an end yesterday after most farmers sold their crop and are now concentrating on seedbeds ahead of transplanting which starts next month.

Contract floors will remain open and a floor can conduct a sale once it has received enough volumes from farmers.

The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) had reduced auction sales days to three per week as volumes continued to decline.

By Thursday, farmers had sold 177 million kg of tobacco worth US$444 million at an average price of US$2,50 per kg.

Volumes sold this season have declined by 23 percent from 232 million kg worth US$456 million sold during the same period last year at an average price of US$1,97 per kg.

This season, the volumes sold through the auction floors declined because of the decentralisation of floors to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

Of the 177 million kg sold this season, only 9,1 million kg worth US$25,6 million were sold through the auction floors while 168,6 million kg worth US$418 were sold through contract floors. The highest price at the auction floors continued at the ceiling of US$4,99 per kg while at the contract floors, the highest price was US$6,560 per kg.

The 2020 tobacco marketing season opened in April because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

TIMB chairman, Mr Patrick Devenish, said the auction system had played an insignificant role at the main auction floors due to the decentralisation of the crop’s sales to districts across the growing regions.

“The auction has played a very small role in the sale of tobacco this year because of the devolution of sales to the districts, so the auction sales are effectively over. The final sales day is Friday and we will wait until there are some bits and pieces of tobacco for clean-up sale and this will be probably sometime in September,” he said.

The Second Crop Assessment Report shows that tobacco production is expected to decline from the record 259,5 million kg last year to 224,1 million kg this season because of the reduced planted area and erratic rains.

Tobacco is one of the most economically important non-food crops in Zimbabwe, earning millions of dollars annually.