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Business Reporter

Most tobacco growing areas in Zimbabwe experienced more hailstorms this year, the industry regulatory board said, amid concerns this could lower yields and compromise quality from this year’s harvest.

Tobacco is one of the country’s major export commodities alongside gold and platinum.

“One of the major challenges that we faced this season is that the hailstorms were more prevalent than the past seasons and we are doing an assessment to ascertain the extent of the damage,” chief executive of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) Meanwell Gudu told The Herald  Finance & Business in an interview.

Extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change have seen the country experiencing unusual rainfall patterns, threatening farm yields and  national food security.

In December last year, a Marondera farmer lost his entire tobacco crop after a hailstorm swept across his farm.

The disaster came at a time as Mr Tawanda Chihwai was preparing to start picking his “golden leaf” for curing.  According to Mr Chihwai, the devastating hailstorm lasted for about 15 minutes and left his entire crop destroyed.

Early this year, another hailstorm hit parts of Mhangura, a key tobacco growing area, destroying homes and crops. Climate experts say the prevalence of hailstorm incidence was largely resulting from the adverse effects of climate change.

Mr Gudu said the tobacco industry regulatory board was also carrying out a comprehensive crop assessment to project potential yields for the current season.

He however, said the crop in most tobacco growing regions was looking “fair to good” and advised farmers to use aphicides to protect it from being attacked by aphids.

“We have a late crop especially in parts of Mashonaland West and (Mashonaland) Central provinces. The late crop is synonymous with viral diseases and we are urging farmers to use aphicides to protect the crop,” said Mr Gudu.

TIMB extended the period farmers are required to destroy seed beds from the initial deadline of December 31, 2021 to January 10, 2022, as a result of erratic rainfall patterns experienced during the onset of the current farming season.

Due to the late rains, many farmers were unable to plant as some parts of the country received the rains late December.

According to regulations governing the growing of tobacco, by December 31, every year all farmers are expected to have destroyed their seedbeds, which is essentially necessary as a way of curbing the spread of pests and diseases. Last year, tobacco farmers produced about 210 million kg from 284 million a year earlier.