A woman carries harvested tobacco leaves at a farm in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, March 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Tafara Mugwara)
Boniface Chitate, a Zimbabwean tobacco farmer, is optimistic as marketing season approaches despite the challenge of hailstorms.
by Tafara Mugwara
HARARE, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Two weeks before Zimbabwe's tobacco marketing season officially commenced, Boniface Chitate could hardly take a breather as he prepared the golden leaf for the market.
"We were looking forward to this stage," Chitate told Xinhua at his farm in Goromonzi, a farming area near Harare, the capital.
"The journey was tiresome - from the planting, taking care of the crop, from harvesting, curing it - so as markets are now opening, we wish prices will be favorable," he said.
After toiling in the fields from the time the crop was planted last July up to now, Chitate is optimistic that the leaf would fetch a high price.
Workers carry harvested tobacco leaves at a farm in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, March 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Tafara Mugwara)
"It's like boxing. You go to a fight after training, lifting weights and doing exercises. No fighter expects to lose the battle. It might go the other way but when you leave your home, you will be excited, telling yourself that if I do this I will excel," Chitate said.
The 2022 tobacco marketing season opens on March 30, with contract tobacco sales starting on March 31.
"The farming season was okay. Even though we faced the challenge of hailstorms, we are now expecting to go to the market. We are expecting the prices to be favorable so that we can get something," said Chitate, one of many Zimbabwean farmers who sell their crop through Tianze, a subsidiary of China Tobacco International.
He commended Tianze for its continued support of tobacco growing in Zimbabwe.
A woman carries harvested tobacco leaves at a farm in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, March 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Tafara Mugwara)
"I have been dealing with Tianze for a short period, but I am happy with the service. The people are welcoming, the prices are competitive. They treat people well. When I dealt with them last year I never experienced any challenges," Chitate said.
Tianze started supporting tobacco farming in Zimbabwe in 2005, with the aim of reviving the country's tobacco output, which had plummeted to a low of 48 million kg in 2008.
Zimbabwe's tobacco output has since rebounded, reaching 185 million kg in 2020.
Tobacco farming is labor and capital intensive, but support from tobacco companies such as Tianze has helped keep him going, Chitate said.
A man checks the temperature in a barn during the curing process of tobacco at a farm in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, March 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Tafara Mugwara)
"We see from the way people come and encourage us saying your crop is good. This gives us energy," he said. "If you see people praising you saying you are doing it right, that gives us the energy."
In Zimbabwe, tobacco is seen as a route out of poverty by many families due to its decentralized production process, which ensures that profits are widely distributed.
Historically, tobacco was a lucrative export crop from which mostly white, large-scale farmers profited.
However, around the turn of the millennium, when Zimbabwe embarked on the land reform program, many black farmers, mostly small-scale farmers, ventured into tobacco farming.
More than 121,000 tobacco farmers registered for the 2021-22 farming season, with the highest number being small-scale farmers.
However, the sector has faced a global campaign to control the trade of tobacco and to ban smoking due to its health risks.
"As a tobacco farmer it pains me because our livelihoods are sustained by tobacco, but at the same time, when the issue of health is raised, you also feel concerned," Chitate said.
After recording successive tobacco output surges in the past two years, Zimbabwe is set to register a decline in output this year due to bad weather, according to the industry regulator, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.
A major producer of tobacco in Africa, Zimbabwe is the fifth-largest in the world. China and South Africa are its largest markets.
