Zimpapers Logo

Cletus Mushanawani Mash Central Bureau
The Tobacco Research Board has partnered a private company, Mamsen Engineering, to produce an environmental friendly and energy -efficient twin-turbo tobacco curing barn.

The new barn, which can be used for drying wood, fruits, biltong and paprika will be launched in Harare on June 5 and is set to address the challenge of deforestation and climate change being caused by conventional tobacco curing methods.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Mashonaland Central Smart Agriculture Conference at Chaminuka Vocational Training Centre last week, TRB training manager, Mr Goodson Khuddu, said the new barn made of iron sheets was an improvement on the rocket barn which is now popular with tobacco farmers.

“We started with the rocket barns which was our first stride towards innovation and smart agriculture. This barn saves on fuel, labour and time spent curing the tobacco crop. It curbs the fuel requirements by half. While it takes about 36 cubic metres of wood to cure a hectare of tobacco, with the rocket ban you require about four and half cubic metres to cure the same quantity.

“In partnership with Mamsen Engineering, we have come up with the twin-turbo metal constructed barn. This barn is ideal for small-scale and communal farmers as it is less expensive to assemble. A farmer can use coal, wood, LPG gas and bio-fuel to cure his or her crops. The effects of climate change are now there for everyone to see, hence the need for more innovations,” he said.

Mr Khuddu said they were doing a lot of research at Kutsaga Research Station to improve on productivity and efficiency in farming.

He said they had also come up with alternative sources of fuel to cure tobacco, like wheat stalks, maize stover and hay to come up with straw briquettes.

They also used sawdust, old newspapers and fine coal as alternative sources of fuel  for curing tobacco.

“We want farmers to realise profits from their ventures. Information Communication Technology and innovations are the way to go. We want environmentally friendly farming to take a lead because if we remain sitting on our laurels, deforestation and the effects of climate change will continue haunting us.

“We have been experimenting with some of the waste products and the results are very pleasing. There are widespread calls to ban coal in curing tobacco because of the health side-effects and the conversion of some of the waste products to cure tobacco is the best alternative,” he said.