By Almot Maqolo.
Harare, Zimbabwe (News Of The South) – At least 448,415 kilograms of flue cured tobacco has been sold so far, raking in US$1.186.783 million, latest statistics from the industry regulator shows.
Tobacco is the country’s single largest export commodity, ahead of platinum and gold.
During the same period last year, 315.362 kilograms of the golden leaf
were sold whilst in value terms it was at US$839.049 million.
Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) statistics for the week ending April 13 this year show that the uptake of deliveries have continued to rise up albeit the farmers concerns of not easily getting paid for their output.
Many communal farmers have been abandoning other cash crops such as
cotton for tobacco due to the favorable prices.
TIMB said Rejected tobacco bales increased by 8.76 percent to 894 bales.
Tobacco bales sold went up by 44.46 percent to 6.945.
Meanwhile, the industry regulator said the average price per kilogram
for the golden leaf stood at US$2.65 cents which is slightly lower than that of prior period last year of US$2.66 cents.
The highest price remained unchanged compared to the same period last
year at US$4.99 cents whilst lowest price stood at US$0.65 cents from $0.10 cents.
Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector is expected to grow by 12 percent mainly
on the back of the good farming season whilst this year’s tobacco
output is projected at 200 million kilograms.
The past cropping season was characterized by drought which resulted
in farmers planting late, while the crop was also heavily affected by dry spells.
In 2015, tobacco output was 199 million kg raking in US$867 million.
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