Quality up but prices down again

Zimbabwean flue-cured tobacco growers are once again being paid less for their leaf than they received the previous year, according to a story by Rumbidzayi Zinyuke for The Southern Times.

With two million kg of leaf having been sold so far this season, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) says that the average price has been driven down by almost 14 percent from US$2.08 per kg last year to US$1.79 per kg this year.

According to the Times story, tobacco prices in Southern Africa have been trending down for the past three years.

The TIMB chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri said last week that there had been an improvement in the quality of the leaf this year and that the board hoped this would translate into good prices.

“We expect tobacco merchants to pay fair prices commensurate with the quality of tobacco which will enable farmers to have sustainable returns on their tobacco,” he said. Last year, the Times story said, farmers protested against the low prices – as low as 10 cents per kg – that merchants offered for their crop resulting in the suspension of sales on the first day of the season.

The problem had not been restricted to Zimbabwe but had been spread across the region. Farmers in Malawi had expressed dissatisfaction over the prices offered for their crop at the beginning of the selling season in April last year.

Malawi was described as one of the five largest tobacco producers in the world, largely due to low export tariffs, cheap labour and lack of regulations. While tobacco sales made up 70 percent of Malawi’s income, its production had been marred by issues of child labour in tobacco fields as, with high levels of poverty, children under the age of 15 were forced by economic necessity to work with their families in the fields.