Demand continues to grow for Zimbabwean tobacco, which accounts for around 22% of total foreign exchange earnings.In the 2022 season, Zimbabwe sold 213 million kilograms of tobacco leaf valued at $650 million, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB).Prices were up as earnings grew by 10.3% year on year, while volume increased by 0.75%.Manufactured tobacco exports were valued at $35.4m for the season.“The increase in tobacco sold, as well as the value, is evidence of our efforts as an industry to establish a $5-billion industry by 2025,” said the TIMB in a statement.A record 185 000 hectares is expected to be planted for the 2022/2023 season following sales of 925 kilograms of tobacco seed, according to the Tobacco Research Board (TRB).In the previous season 798kg of seed was sold.Earnings could be higher if Zimbabwe increased production of cigarettes; at present local manufacturers only process around 2% of the total crop, according to estimates.Production increased after the commercial farmers were forced off the land when the industry switched to contracting small-scale growers.The 2022 harvest was delivered by 122 000 registered tobacco growers, some 118 000 of whom are contracted.There are, however, new challenges to the tobacco industry – the biggest being climate change.While commercial farmers use coal in their drying f lues, smallholder farmers with limited capital are using wood for curing tobacco, resulting in deforestation.According to the National Climate Change Response Strategy, curing a ton of tobacco consumes almost three times the wood a person requires per year.For every kilogram of tobacco, about 10kg of wood is used in the curing process.About 20% of Zimbabwe’s annual deforestation – or 60 000 hectares a year – is attributed to biomass energy consumption for curing tobacco.Since 2015, it has been obligatory for tobacco farmers to pay a levy from their sales to go towards reforestation. The levy is collected by TIMB, channelled to the Central Bank, and then distributed to the Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe (FCZ), a state agency mandated with regulation, management and conservation of forests.
