Reprieve for Zim tobacco

LIVINGSTONE MARUFU

Zimbabwe’s golden leaf will this year have a breather amid indications that the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) slated for next month will not put tobacco growing on its main agenda following huge steps towards the sustainable growth of the cash crop which is Zimbabwe’s fourth foreign currency earner.

There was panic last year following threats by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ban tobacco production on health grounds.

Annual tobacco export receipts hover around US$800m and directly supports close to 200 000 households in the country.

It also accounts for 50% of agriculture export receipts and contributes 25% of agriculture’s gross domestic product.

In an emailed response, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) told Business Times that the fact that the tobacco ban is not on the top agenda in the Cop27 discussions means the sustainability push is paying dividends.

“TIMB has been working with all growers to re-orient their production practices to patterns that favour sustainability.

“In line with the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Strategy, we are working towards producing 300m kilogrammes per annum by 2025,” TIMB said.

“As a pilot tobacco intensification project, TIMB is in the final stages of rolling out the centralised tobacco facilities programme. The pilot project will be in Mashonaland West benefitting 40 small-scale farmers.”

Tobacco Research Board’s newly appointed chief executive officer Frank Magama told Business Times that the golden leaf is one of the country’s biggest foreign currency earners hence  means and methods to sustain its growth should be intensified.

“It is a fact that the TRB and the tobacco industry at large are actively involved in ensuring tobacco value chain sustainability for the Zimbabwean crop. This is through ensuring that the crop is produced using sustainable practices that include environmentally friendly agrochemicals, greener curing fuels, more efficient barns and that alternatives are actively being sought as per Article 17 and 18 of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control.

“However, it would be premature to attribute the absence of this issue on COP27 to this fact,” Magama said.

He said the Tobacco Research Board is availing varieties of the well sought-after styles on the international market and which fetch good prices on the market, providing information to ensure that it is grown profitably using science-based production practices and providing research information that ensures that it is grown in a sustainable manner to ensure tobacco remains a critical crop for the country.

TRB would continuously train growers on all aspects of production to improve productivity and it has advocated the growing of tobacco as part of a cropping system alongside and in rotation with various other crops.

“Among the crops that growers can adopt into the system as a way to gain experience and optimise growing conditions before tobacco is banned include crops such as industrial hemp [Cannabis], Chia and Sesame and trials are in progress to evaluate these crops,” Magama said.

He said the TRB also “appreciates that growers have been searching for alternative crops and that plantation crops such as avocado, macadamia and blue berries are now widely grown on commercial farms”.

The Presidential Horticultural Scheme has also seen many small-scale growers adopting fruit tree production and TRB is contributing to the success of these ventures by carrying out research to optimise the local production of planting material through tissue culture, Magama said.

Local production of planting material (plantlets) is important for import substitution and will most likely ensure the material is availed to local farmers at a reasonable cost.

Irish potato is another crop that large scale growers with irrigation facilities have gone into.

Zimbabwe Tobacco Association CEO Rodney Ambrose said despite being given another chance there is a need to step up efforts of sustainability to ensure tobacco growing is not banned.

“It’s a good development that tobacco ban is not on the agenda this year but we should continue pushing these sustainability issues to ensure that even in the push against tobacco growing we will still survive,” he said.

Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development minister Anxious Masuka said Zimbabwe should value-add tobacco before exporting it to 60 countries to get value from the crop.

“The calls for the elimination of tobacco remain a real threat to our agriculture sector. Our tobacco is exported to more than 60 destinations. Only 1% or 2% is value added before export. We need to capture more value. We have come up with a bold plan, which will be radical enough to transform the (agriculture) sector,” he said.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Shadreck Makombe said the move will give the country an opportunity to scale up sustainability issues.

“The fact that tobacco is not on agenda does not mean we are immune from that threat but it gives us an opportunity to step up our efforts to sustain the production of the golden leaf,” Makombe said.

In 2019, Zimbabwe was the third leading exporter of unmanufactured tobacco in terms of value (US$782.9m) after Brazil and Belgium and the fifth leading exporter in terms of exported quantities (173,599mt) after Brazil, Belgium, China and India.

The country is getting fair prices as compared to other leading exporters such as India, Malawi, Belgium and China.

In November last year, WHO carried out a Conference of the Parties (COP) to discuss the ban, under the theme, “The end of the tobacco pandemic”.

With Covid-19 ravaging economies in the world, the WHO is pushing the narrative that tobacco is causing respiratory problems and worsening Covid-19 effects on people.

According to WHO, tobacco remains the only consumer product that kills up to half of those who use it as intended by manufacturers and it kills one person every four seconds, approximately eight million individuals needlessly dying every year with one million of those deaths occurring in non-smokers exposed to tobacco smoke.

WHO also links tobacco use to the four most prevalent noncommunicable diseases: cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes.

Zimbabwe currently supplies most of the leading importers of tobacco including China, which is the largest importer accounting for 57% of Zimbabwe’s exports.

In its Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Strategy document, the government said the production and marketing of tobacco are largely threatened by anti-tobacco campaigns in the form of FCTC.

“The value chain has the capacity to contribute more to agriculture and national GDP through optimisation of financing and increasing productivity to three metric tonnes per hectare from 1.5 metric tonnes.

“The Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan seeks to secure the future and consolidated the important role of tobacco value chain to agriculture and the economy through sustainable intensification of tobacco production to 300m kilogrammes, reforming, restructuring and rebuilding existing institutions in order to optimise tobacco value chain financing in order to optimise the net export benefits from tobacco, increasing tobacco value addition and beneficiation from the current 2% to 30%,” reads part of the document.