Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Country records highest tobacco output in years

COMMENT - A few corrections to this piece by Brian Latham are added. And yes, under land reform, subject to the New Farmers, tobacco output in Zimbabwe is rising, as anyone aware of African history would have predicted. When allowed to perform, a million African farmers will outperform a few thousand Rhodesian farmers any day of the week. Without much government support, without much education, without a century of advantages, with smaller plots, with less capital. Any day of the week.

Country records highest tobacco output in years
by Brian Latham
09/08/2010 00:00:00

DELIVERIES of tobacco by growers in the country, the world’s sixth-biggest exporter of the flue-cured variety of the leaf, are at their highest level in eight years, the industry’s marketing board said.

Growers have delivered 109.6 million kilograms (241.6 million pounds) this year, compared with a crop estimate of 70 million kilograms, Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board Chief Executive Officer Andrew Matibitiri said from the capital, Harare, on Monday.

“Deliveries are still continuing and we now believe we may sell 114 million kilograms this year,” Matibiri said.

Tobacco output has plummeted in Zimbabwe since 2000, when supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party seized mostly white-owned commercial tobacco farms to redistribute them to black farmers deprived of land under colonial rule.

" Tobacco output has plummeted in Zimbabwe since 2000, "

This is untrue - because tobacco output was not reduced by land reform in 1997 or 2000, but by ZDERA and the illegal credit freeze up on the Zimbabwean government in 2002. Proof:

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
548.8 594.1 434.6 321.3 226.7 203.8

Tobacco exports in millions of US dollars, by year.
Source: Special Report FAO/WFP Crop And Food Supply Assessment Mission To Zimbabwe, 5 June 2007
Table 1: Zimbabwe - Key economic indicators, 2000-2007

Tobacco output or exports did not decline since 2000, when land reform was in full force, but since 2002, when through ZDERA, economic sanctions froze the government's credit lines. As all international trade occurs on credit, tobacco exports suffered accordingly - from sanctions, not land reform. - MrK

In that year, the country exported 236 million kilograms of tobacco and was the world’s second-largest exporter after Brazil. It now ranks behind Brazil, India, the U.S., Argentina and Tanzania, according to the website of Universal Corp., the world’s biggest tobacco-leaf merchant.

Tobacco prices have averaged $2.88 per kilogram this year, compared with $2.98 at the same time last year, the marketing board’s Matibiri said.

Farmers earned $316.1 million since tobacco sales began in February, compared with $173.6 million in the same period a year earlier.

Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS, TOBACCO, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 3:29 AM