COMMENT - Zimbabwe after landreform is today the biggest producer of tobacco in the region. Tobacco didn't collapse, it took off. And it will when the South Africans and Namibians get their land back. Make no mistake, legislation like
the Maize Control Acts and Native Land Acts were intended to reduce productivity to protect market prices for the European minority. African profits were used to subsidize colonists' agriculture.
" “For the 2018 crop season, we had a production of about 11.2 million Kgs of tobacco valued at about US$23.1 million. Why choose to come and grow tobacco in Zambia? In the region Zambia is the smallest tobacco producing country but it has the largest potential. Zimbabwe currently grows over 200 million Kgs, Zambia is at about 25 million Kgs, Malawi is at 165 million Kgs, Mozambique is at 85 million. So, we are very small. Other countries are progressively increasing their production [but] in Zambia it’s been a very slow process,” Matakala explained. "
(LUSAKA TIMES) Zambia has largest potential to grow cash crops, says JTI
By Chambwa Moonga on October 18, 2018
(By Chambwa Moonga in Kaoma)
JAPAN Tobacco International says while Zambia is the smallest tobacco producing country in the region, the country has the largest potential to grow the cash crop.
Briefing journalists on Tuesday afternoon in Kaoma, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Leaf Zambia Limited corporate affairs and communications manager Litiya Matakala explained why his firm chose to grow tobacco in Zambia.
He later led journalists to tour JTI’s operations based at Rose wood in Kaoma.
JTI is a leading tobacco products company.
“Currently, we are the third largest in the world and our goal is to become number one by 2030. When it comes to Zambia, JTI established itself in 2009…” Matakala said.
“We contract farmers to grow tobacco in Zambia. We grow two types of tobacco, burley in the Eastern Province and Virginia, which is grown here in the Western Province, Kaoma. We basically provide input loans and extension services to our growers. So, we have a team of leaf production technicians who are extension officers who work closely with the farmers to grow the tobacco. In terms of the number of growers as we speak now, from the 120 or so farmers, we are now sitting at over 4,000 growers in Kaoma. Overall, we have about 7,000 farmers that we contract year in, year out.”
He said JTI had a research centre in Chisamba district where it does trials for new tobacco varieties and “see how we can improve yields.”
Matakala added that as of this year, JTI had about 201 permanent employees countrywide while another 330 were employed on a temporally basis annually.
“For the 2018 crop season, we had a production of about 11.2 million Kgs of tobacco valued at about US$23.1 million. Why choose to come and grow tobacco in Zambia? In the region Zambia is the smallest tobacco producing country but it has the largest potential. Zimbabwe currently grows over 200 million Kgs, Zambia is at about 25 million Kgs, Malawi is at 165 million Kgs, Mozambique is at 85 million. So, we are very small. Other countries are progressively increasing their production [but] in Zambia it’s been a very slow process,” Matakala explained.
“There are a number of things that need to be worked on in terms of the regulatory environment and how the Ministry of Agriculture is going to position the crop (tobacco) because in the Seventh National Development Plan it’s identified as a key crop and it’s a key crop. When you look at the returns per hectare compared to other crops, there is definitely more value in tobacco production than there is in other cash crops.”
He stressed that Zambia produced quality tobacco albeit “it’s a small volume production.”
“The land availability is good; far much better than Zimbabwe which is the largest producing country of Virginia tobacco in this part of the world,” he said.
On sustainability of the business and its impact on the environment, Matakala said: “For JTI we take environmental issues seriously. Over the past four, five years we have been implementing a number of projects; we are planting trees and we’ve also started investing in more efficient tobacco curing facilities.”
“So, in terms of wood loads (planted trees for using to cure tobacco), we’ve got about 1,750 wood loads which are established and each wood load has 200 trees. Over the next three years, all our farmers will have a wood load, starting this year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Matakala disclosed that in terms of tonnage for Virginia in 2017, “we had 4.6 million Kgs and that was [from] 3,500 growers. Then for this year we’ve got about 4,185 growers and tonnage [is estimated to be] 5.8 million Kgs.”
Labels: JAPAN, LAND REFORM, TOBACCO
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(HERALD ZW) State to formalise contract farming
January 24, 2014
Elita Chikwati Agriculture Reporter
Government is drafting a Statutory Instrument to guide contract farming and encourage farmers to switch to the arrangement. Farmers are in a dilemma owing to lack of funding. Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Deputy Minister responsible for Cropping Davis Marapira said Government was in the process of drafting the SI
“With the current situation, we encourage farmers who are not able to finance themselves to go into contract farming. It is disturbing that some farmers were resettled on prime land but are failing to utilise it due to financial challenges.
“Contract farming is the only way to go. Farmers are stressed as they struggle to access inputs and establish markets for their produce.
“Under contract farming, the farmer is guaranteed of inputs and market,” he said.
Deputy Minister Marapira said the absence of a Government policy on contract farming was disadvantaging farmers and contractors.
“Contract farming does not mean land will be returned to the whites. Government allows farmers to get into contracts not leasing land to the former owners. We want proper partnerships that benefit farmers.
“We allow public-private-partnerships between farmers and parastatals,” he said.
Labels: CONTRACT FARMING, DAVIS MARAPIRA, TOBACCO
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(HERALD ZW) EU can’t resist Zim tobacco
January 24, 2014 silence muchemwa Local News
Farai Rugeje Agricultural Reporter
European countries have continued to buy tobacco from Zimbabwe despite imposing illegal economic sanctions on the country. Latest statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board indicate that Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Netherlands are some of the traditional markets for Zimbabwe’s tobacco.
Belgium has imported 427 000kg of flue-cured tobacco worth US$1,2 million from Zimbabwe at an average price of US$2,77 per kg, while Netherlands has bought 58 000kg worth US$339 000 at an average price of US$5,89 per kg.
France and Germany have bought 45 000kg and 20 000kg worth US$13 300 and US$131 200, respectively.
TIMB statistics have also shown that China remains the top buyer of the Zimbabwean tobacco maintaining the position for consecutive four years.
China is offering US$9,39 per kg.
Zimbabwe exports its semi-processed tobacco to different countries. So far 20 countries including United Arab Emirates, Poland, Sudan, South Africa, Botswana, Montenegro and Russia.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union vice president Johnson Mapira said it was important for Zimbabwe to process tobacco instead of continuing to sell raw leaf.
“We should add value to our tobacco by processing it locally into finished products such as cigarettes. We are losing a lot of money in trading in unprocessed leaf,” he said.
He urged Government to continuously assist upcoming entrepreneurs to explore opportunities in the value addition process of tobacco.
“This will enable to create job opportunities for the youths,” he said.
Agriculture experts advised farmers to produce high quality tobacco that can fetch high prices on the market and attract many countries willing to import the crop.
Cumulative tobacco experts have raked in US$21,1 million from the sale of 4,2 million kg of flue cured tobacco.
Labels: EU, TOBACCO
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(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE) Tobacco exceeds targets, sales near $600m
10/06/2014 00:00:00
by The Source
ZIMBABWE’S tobacco output for the 2014 season on Monday reached 185 million kilogrammes, surpassing the season target by 5 million kg, latest figures show.
The sector continues to recover as resettled small-scale farmers find their feet, but output is still shy of the all-time high of 236 million kg achieved in 2000 before the onset of land reforms. Output plunged to a record low of 48 million in 2008.
Tobacco is a major foreign currency earner for Zimbabwe. Last year, the country sold 167 million kg of tobacco.
Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) statistics show that by Monday, day 74 of auctions, 185 million kg had gone under the hammer, up from 140 million kg sold during the same period last year. The selling season normally spans 90 days.
Revenues amounting to $587 million have been generated compared to $520 million in 2013. Total sales amounted to $577 million last year.
The price, at which the leaf has been sold since opening of floors in February, has declined 14 percent to average $3.17 per kg from last year’s $3.70.
The government has said a jump in production was anticipated following a 29 percent increase to 91,278 in the number of farmers involved in the production of the crop this season, with 90,000 hectares put under the crop.
Zimbabwe has three tobacco auction floors while six contractors have also been licensed to buy the crop this season.
Major exports markets for Zimbabwean tobacco include China, Belgium, Philippines, United Kingdom and Spain.
Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), TOBACCO, ZIMBABWE
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(HERALD ZW) China — The ‘Enemy’ the West Donates to us
November 30, 2013 Musah Gwaunza Nathaniel Manheru
Zimbabwe is set to export over US$1billion worth of tobacco, surpassing the US$800million exported last season.
Zimbabwe is set to export over US$1billion worth of tobacco, surpassing the US$800million exported last season.
Let’s punch in a few figures, even though I know figures don’t make good, easy read. We need them all the same, more so when one realises certain prejudices have tended to entrench and misguide debate on national issues, all in the absence of hard figures and facts. I will start with tobacco, our area of real breakthrough.
Earnings have hit US$1.3bn this marketing season, up from slightly over US$700million recorded same season last year. This staggering figure comes from the 160million kg of tobacco sold during the season, well above the 130million of previous season. From this haul, we are set to export over US$1billion worth of tobacco, surpassing the US$800million exported last season.
The downside is that we process and consume a mere three percent from this staggering harvest, arguably good for national health but decidedly bad for value addition, for our movement away from the raw material export regime which has been the bane of our economy and economies of most Third World countries. All these are TIMB figures.
When the Chinaman smokes
But there are some key figures emerging from our raw tobacco exports. China is and has been the country’s biggest tobacco buyer, been so for more than a decade now. It takes in 46,3 million kg tobacco worth almost US$360million.
Indeed the Chinese love their smoke, and
need our tobacco to ginger up theirs. What is more, China also gives the country the highest average price by volumes of US$7,76 per kg. Additionally, China funds the growing of a sizeable portion of this tobacco through contract farming.
There is another shocker. The next best buyer of our tobacco after China is Belgium, accounting for 22million kg, just below half of what China
buys. Belgium’s value to the industry is US$114 million, at an average price of US$5,15 per kg, which is about US$2.5 dollars shy of the Chinese average price.
Next is South Africa, coming a distant third from imports accounting for 17million kg of our tobacco worth 56million at an average price of US$3,36. I am told the highest price came from Japan which paid US$10.03 per kg, but bought a mere 600kg. Of course the Congo offered the worst price of US$0.29. It accounted for 76 800kg of our tobacco.
I need to clinch the points: China is the biggest and best buyer of our tobacco whose growing it also sponsors through contract farming.
The next best customer is Belgium, followed by South Africa. Let us keep that order in mind in this industry which now records almost 84 000 growers who, arguably, are also households. Compute the welfare implications of this and the broader land reform programme which made this possible.
Indeed when the China man smokes, Zimbabwe catches a livelihood.
When size of concern outstrips trade
I move on to Zimbabwe’s broad trade with the rest of the world. Trade between China and Zimbabwe grew 30 percent in the nine months to September, with Zimbabwe enjoying a surplus of US$279million, according to figures released by the Chinese Embassy here. Zimbabwe’s exports were up 44 percent and valued at US$597million, against Chinese imports of US$318million.
Of course the greater portion of Zimbabwe’s exports to China subsist in raw tobacco. Not diamonds as widely believed! Noteworthy is the fact that our imports from China are largely machinery.
China smokeThe Trade and Law Centre which captures trade statistics between Zimbabwe and the whole of the EU record a doubling of trade to US$888,12million in 2012, up from US$479million three years before in 2009. Of course sanctions made sure the trade between the bloc and Zimbabwe declined from an all-time high of US$1,2bn achieved in 2009, just before land reforms.
In fact the US$888,12million marks some decline from US$931,5 achieved in 2011, indicating some fluctuations but within a general upward trend in trade. Our exports are dominated by minerals but also include agricultural products.
Again, let me clinch the points. Let it be recorded that more of our finite mineral resources are going to the EU than to China, a point rarely acknowledged by our pseudo-European, African nationalist commentators!
Let it also be recorded that value of trade between Zimbabwe and China peeps that between Zimbabwe and the whole EU bloc. I hope we can give our policies and this notion of re-engagement with the West a sense of size and proportion. It makes little sense to go feverish about engaging people whose trade value to us is small and unpredictable, while bad mouthing those who are emerging as real trading partners. Let the size of our affection and concern be the size of our trade. Please!
The way to Brussels is via Brussels
How about boss America? Well, the US Department of Commerce says in the three quarters of this year, Zimbabwe has recorded a trade surplus of US$32million in its trade with America. Total trade between the two countries is worth US$106million.
The rises in the last three years have been marginal. Our exports to the Americans are predominantly minerals , then skins and a few agricultural commodities. Again, let our Eurocentric commentators take note — due note — of who is using up our finite mineral resources.
But a few more points are in order. The US$32 million trade surplus is a little shy from the US$20 million our companies have lost to the US by way of impounded receipts under the sanctions law, ZDERA. That makes America’s net cost to this economy huge, when read against the paltry US$32million surplus, so-called.
Our tobacco sales to Belgium mean more to us than our total trade with America. Surely it is much more than re-engaging the West; it is about quantifying the West’s value to us, and also forensically determining which polity in the whole western world is worth developing relations with.
Given Belgium’s role on our diamonds, Belgium is definitely worth cultivating, and Brussels is not reached through London or Washington.
China the investor
I move on to the area of investment. The Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) recently revealed that China emerges as a consistent top investor in Zimbabwe from 2010, with its investments contributing 72 percent, or US$670million from a total of US$930million worth of projects approved last year. By end of October, ZIA had approved US$374,8million worth of investments mainly in the areas of energy and mining.
Given Belgium’s role on our diamonds, Belgium is definitely worth cultivating, and Brussels is not reached through London or Washington.
Given Belgium’s role on our diamonds, Belgium is definitely worth cultivating, and Brussels is not reached through London or Washington.
In fact in 2012, China’s cumulative investments in the mining sector (gold, diamonds and chrome) totalled US$583million, or 62percent of the total US$688million FDI approvals for the entire Zimbabwean mining industry last year. China offers 40 tradeable minerals, all of them in Zimbabwe.
Agriculture amounted to US$18,6million of her investments, manufacturing US$35,5million, while US$23million went into services. Construction accounted for US$7,4million.
There is clear evidence of balanced Chinese appetite across sectors, with an emphasis on medium to large-scale projects.
When not looking West really helps
There is another surprise. Russia emerges second on investments, with approvals from it worth US$40,1million. Next came South Africa with US$39million, and UK with US$34million.
Next comes Mauritius with approvals worth US$25million. But of course these are figures on mere approvals. Real figures on investments which come into the country are far lower, albeit with China still dominating.
ZIA figures show China as having invested US$100million in the first five months of the year, followed by Malaysia with US$11million and South Africa with US$7million.
The key points to make is that China is targeting extractive industries which it is still developing. Presently it cannot explain who is chewing our finite mineral resources, although it could in due course. But its partnership approach to investments gives us an equal share in the exploitation of those resources.
More important, Zimbabwe’s healthy resource base means more Chinese FDI is more than likely. Secondly, Russia is to be watched as a growing investor in Zimbabwe, with Zimbabwe gaining more from associating and cultivating South Africa and Mauritius than the hoary UK, all along its traditional circumstantial investor and decade-long tormentor.
China does, the West’s endless excuses
Even more important, China is entering the infrastructural and energy areas, both of which are key enablers to economic recovery as envisaged under Zim Asset. A good pointer to China’s responsiveness to local beneficiation policies are the US$100million-worth of five chrome processing plants underway, one of which is now virtually complete, sited at Selous.
Contrast this with the Americans who have been here, exploiting our Chrome since UDI days when they refused to obey UN sanctions citing security concerns. Contrast this with British extractive companies which have been here for well over a century without beneficiating.
Contrast this with Zimplats which has been dropping all manner of arguments on why a platinum refinery is not yet possible. Early December shall witness a major Chinese investment in the cotton ginning sector.
Early December shall witness a major Chinese investment in the cotton ginning sector.
Early December shall witness a major Chinese investment in the cotton ginning sector.
About this, let me not give away too much, except to say that job creation is going to be massive, both directly and indirectly. These are the hard facts, formidably backed by statistics. I take it we are all agreed that real jobs and real value come from value addition, not raw exports.
I apologise for this part which is so heavily laced with figures. But we needed it for what follows.
Another Caliban, again
I now turn to the dominant economic discourse in this country, all in the light of the above hard facts. One article which dominated headlines this week read: “Analysts, citizens slam Look East policy.”
The article expresses serious reservations about “the conduct of Asian investors in Zimbabwe”, adding “The Chinese in particular have become notorious for their violation of the labour laws, which in some instances involves long working hours, poor salaries and lack of protective clothing as well as physical abuse of employees.
They have also come under fire for failing to create employment amid allegations they are bringing cheap labour from their country. The extremely poor quality of products they sell here has become a major concern among consumers. Of late, the Chinese have been implicated in illegal activities such as smuggling of minerals and ivory poaching.”
Some economist is imported into the story — one Innocent Makwiramiti — who says the Chinese have failed to fill the void left by Western investors and have become “more looters than investors”.
“They have failed to create employment compared to Western investors, who come with their technology and skills and impart them to the locals,” adds the so-called economist.
It is almost the story of Caliban, the conquered native for whom gaining a new master — not getting emancipated from all mastery — seems a major milestone. It is so sad.
Why are you here, Chinese?
Then John Robertson weighs in: “Their objective is to make money for China and we should not be encouraging that kind of investment.” Then ZCTU’s Nkiwane who calls them “worst employers”. After Nkiwane comes ordinary black Zimbabweans from “Harare’s Central Business District”, all brought in to prove that “public opinion was very much against the Chinese.”
In reality, the article whips an anti-Chinese sentiment almost to xenophobic proportions. “I have not yet seen anything that would justify the Chinese staying here. Despite their presence, we still have a high unemployment rate unlike during the days of Western investors.
“They are only here because of Zanu-PF — their mission is to make money and go,” says one Last Chinodya from Mufakose. As a representative voice for us blacks, Chinodya sounds militant and nationalistic, averse to any occupation of national space by the Chinese. But only by the Chinese. No regard is paid to the rampant persisting unemployment, only matched by many westerners who remain here. So what justifies their staying here? And it is as if the small Chinese have toppled our dear, employing whites! Again, so, so sad!
We don’t need to look east!
In case you thought the above article is a fluke, here is the Zimbabwe Independent, a finance and business weekly. Its editorial comment this week, titled “We need coherent, pragmatic leaders”, rails against a hidebound, ideological approach to national issues by the political leadership, all in an increasingly complex and interdependent world. In part the editorial comment reads: “Zimbabwe is “looking east”, while the East is looking West and on every other direction.
Deng, with his cat metaphor, and Kwame Nkrumah’s words, long debunked this misleading linear thinking. The truth is we don’t need such things as the “Look East” policy; we need progressive thinking and strategies of economic development.
Government can’t afford to think within the “Us versus Them” premise; their policies and decisions must be based on research, data, technocratic advice and citizens needs. We live in a world of complex matrices and perplexing choices, so we need to be more nuanced and discerning in our understanding of issues. Crude and crass thinking doesn’t help anymore. Zimbabwe needs a coherent and pragmatic leadership, not insular and myopic rulers, more so when clashes over resources have become a political lightning rod in many mineral-rich countries like ours.” Of course in many ways the editorial reads like Manheru last week, except for very different reasons.
On whose behalf are we angry?
I want to raise key questions in the continuing discussion on our national visioning task. What factual and statistical basis supports Zimbabwe’s incipient but clearly growing anti-Chinese discourse in its economic arguments and visioning escapades? The above statistics clearly attest to a growing role for Chinese capital at a time of sanctions-induced severe contraction on the part of western capital, whether actual or prospective. What supports this reflexive deriding of Chinese capital which has waded into our market in spite of greater politics, against all caution? Are we dealing with an economic argument or a political attitude?
On whose behalf are we angry with the Chinese? . . .Once asked Arthur Mutambara.
On whose behalf are we angry with the Chinese? . . .Once asked Arthur Mutambara.
If it’s a political attitude, whose is it, ours, congenitally ours, or induced and borrowed? The figures above show who has been moving Zimbabwe in its lean years. Who, in other words, has been stopping the country from collapsing. I would want to believe that is our real interest, collective national interest. So, in whose interest is this anti-Chinese sentiment which comes through us as raw anger, indigenous and very black? On whose behalf are we angry with the Chinese? It is a question Arthur Mutambara once raised, but we ducked responsibility for answering it by turning it into a rhetorical question.
Blaming China for western ruin
Or the obverse, before the rise of China as an economic powerhouse, western capital was dominant here, both before and after our Independence. By the mid nineties and certainly after the 2000 land reform programme, that capital deserted this market on political instructions and as part of building pressure against our taking back our land. The current industrial dysfunction has nothing to do with the Chinese. It has everything to do with western resistance to Zimbabwe’s post-independence nationalist policies before we looked East, everything to do with western economic sabotage to force the hand of local politics. Blair even wanted to follow that hostile action through with military action. Yet we don’t blame the offending West, don’t blame ourselves, our entitlement policies and the land we have recovered.
Accept that this is the price we pay for our freedom and heritage. No, we blame the Chinese, ostensibly for not replacing the westerners effectively after they have ruined our country, by creating many jobs for us and by transferring technology to us! Except the westerners took back their jobs and never injected new technology here, which is why this country beats the rest of the world as an industrial museum showcase for decrepit technologies. It is as if the West left in protest at the arrival of the Chinese, and not that the Chinese only coming in after the West has left in a huff.
Tony Blair even wanted to follow the West's hostile action against Zimbabwe through with military action. Yet we don’t blame the offending West, don’t blame ourselves, our entitlement policies and the land we have recovered.
Tony Blair even wanted to follow the West’s hostile action against Zimbabwe through with military action. Yet we don’t blame the offending West, don’t blame ourselves, our entitlement policies and the land we have recovered.
Don’t we sense we have a problem, ourselves as Zimbabweans and how we understand and appreciate our total circumstances? Surely it makes better sense to blame and attack the West for ruining our jobs and destroying our economy?
Reverse insularity
And then our understanding of rules for investors who come here. When we say Government must be pro-business and pro-investors, indeed berate it for being ideological in a pragmatic era, are we laying down ground rules for all investors regardless of colour, shape of face, height and geographical origin? Or are we hiding behind these seemingly broad, neutral rules to push through our pro-West ideological hide-boundedness whose flip side is the same ideological inflexibility we charge the political leadership with? When we say “we don’t need such things as the “Look East” policy”, are we not saying we only need “Look West” policy, and saying so with a sense of supreme flexibility, wisdom and fashionable bigotry? Are we not being “insular and myopic”, like our rulers against whom we reserve full rheum?
White, western and Rhodesian
Robertson says the objective of Chinese businesses “is to make money for China and we should not be encouraging that kind of investment.” Although I don’t know who “we” is, I still say fair enough. But what has been the objectives of British, American, German, Dutch, Swedish investments since 1890? For whom have they been making money? For the Chinese, for the Russians, for the Africans? Which investor in this country has made money for someone else other than themselves , their country and race?
Where are the national returns on the countless mining dumps, industrial chimneys, broken lives and livelihoods that are ours to count and endure as the once colonised? Robertson confuses me. And when his fellow Rhodesian – Eddie Cross – tells Parliament only this week that: “There is no investor in the world that is going to put a dollar on the table and have fifty-one cents taken by ZANU-PF,” might such a rule of thumb on investor handling encompass, accommodate the Chinese? Where would that leave Robertson and is arguments? And Cross makes remarks that yield an amusing yet far-reaching double-meaning: “We cannot expect any substantial new investment in Zimbabwe until we are able to guarantee
Cecil John Rhodes . . .The pioneer of colonialism. What has been the objectives of British, American, German, Dutch, Swedish investments since 1890 as they scrambled for Zimbabwe?
those investors power”! Could we concede such power to all investors, including the Chinese? Or an investor is more than he who brings in capital? He must be white, western or Rhodesian? What would be our stake as Africans in such a racialised definition?
Selective xenophobia
One senses not just double standards, but a deep-seated racism which we have met sometime in our history, but which we have never fully grasped by way of its full scope in history, its extraordinary adaptability in post-colonial, global times. What is worse, we have internalised it. Historically, racism developed in circumstances of colonial invasion, occupation and plunder. Whilst its core tenets were the same, it adapted itself to circumstances of subject nations and peoples against whom it was practised. We Africans mistakenly think we are the only victims of racism. No, we aren’t.
The Chinese, the Indians and the Latinos were. What is not known by many in Zimbabwe is that just as we blacks were profiled as indolent, infantile and lewd, the Chinese were characterised as sly, deceitful and given to stealing, so mischaracterised by the same British who dehumanised us here. Before British eyes, we were the same subjects who had to be redeemed from damnation. How different is this image from the dummy Robertson and his ilk are selling us today, in spite of China’s powerful role in global affairs? Don’t we see the incongruity of a black mouth spouting the same dehumanising epithets as was reserved for a fellow oppressed Chinese by the British in colonial heyday?
If China is so deceitful and so bad for nations, why is the West looking and courting East, something apparently unknown to the Zimbabwe Independent? But it is also funny that we black Zimbabweans are incited to hate the Chinese who gave us guns and the technology of liberation yesterday, give us technology and capital for development today, while loving uxoriously the very westerners who have crafted and imposed hurtful sanctions that daily ravage our lives and destroy our collective livelihoods. Or that we who have suffered more than 400 000 white intruders and occupiers here for well over a century, suddenly invent xenophobia against a handful of Chinese people who are here to do business with us, indeed have only been here less than a decade ago. Why are we taught to hate people with whom we have a shared colonial history, taught to hate each other by our common enemy?
Bearded infantiles
It helps to recall that one enduring ruse of imperialism is turn its real victims into its “freed” beneficiaries from another and even imaginary evil power invented solely to burnish its own otherwise glaring misdeeds and evil acts. So in 1890 the Shonas were not invaded, conquered, occupied and enslaved; they were saved from a marauding despot called Lobengula. So goes the colonial lore. Similarly, today Zimbabweans have to fear and be saved from the Chinese who loot their diamonds and “invest only for China”, and not from the British who have looted their country, independence, resources and personality since 1890.
Not saved from the same British who seek the old colonial mastery. I thought we had come of age, grown older than child-men and child-women of yore, bearded infantiles who are given new, diversionary scapegoats by their real enemies. That way we forget that China became a powerhouse not by smoking British opium, not by aping British ways, but by skillfully riding the hyena of capitalism, taming it until it accepted to have Chinese characteristics. I have no problem in Zimbabweans not wanting to lose their finite resources to the Chinese; what bothers me is their readiness to lose them to the West. And feeling most holy and righteous about it. Icho!
nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: CHINA, JOHN ROBERTSON, NATHANIEL MANHERU, NEOLIBERALISM, TOBACCO
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(HERALD ZW) China — The ‘Enemy’ the West Donates to us
November 30, 2013 Musah Gwaunza Nathaniel Manheru
Zimbabwe is set to export over US$1billion worth of tobacco, surpassing the US$800million exported last season.
Let’s punch in a few figures, even though I know figures don’t make good, easy read. We need them all the same, more so when one realises certain prejudices have tended to entrench and misguide debate on national issues, all in the absence of hard figures and facts. I will start with tobacco, our area of real breakthrough.
Earnings have hit US$1.3bn this marketing season, up from slightly over US$700million recorded same season last year. This staggering figure comes from the 160million kg of tobacco sold during the season, well above the 130million of previous season. From this haul, we are set to export over US$1billion worth of tobacco, surpassing the US$800million exported last season.
The downside is that we process and consume a mere three percent from this staggering harvest, arguably good for national health but decidedly bad for value addition, for our movement away from the raw material export regime which has been the bane of our economy and economies of most Third World countries. All these are TIMB figures.
When the Chinaman smokes
But there are some key figures emerging from our raw tobacco exports. China is and has been the country’s biggest tobacco buyer, been so for more than a decade now. It takes in 46,3 million kg tobacco worth almost US$360million.
Indeed the Chinese love their smoke, and need our tobacco to ginger up theirs. What is more, China also gives the country the highest average price by volumes of US$7,76 per kg. Additionally, China funds the growing of a sizeable portion of this tobacco through contract farming.
There is another shocker. The next best buyer of our tobacco after China is Belgium, accounting for 22million kg, just below half of what China buys. Belgium’s value to the industry is US$114 million, at an average price of US$5,15 per kg, which is about US$2.5 dollars shy of the Chinese average price.
Next is South Africa, coming a distant third from imports accounting for 17million kg of our tobacco worth 56million at an average price of US$3,36. I am told the highest price came from Japan which paid US$10.03 per kg, but bought a mere 600kg. Of course the Congo offered the worst price of US$0.29. It accounted for 76 800kg of our tobacco.
I need to clinch the points: China is the biggest and best buyer of our tobacco whose growing it also sponsors through contract farming.
The next best customer is Belgium, followed by South Africa. Let us keep that order in mind in this industry which now records almost 84 000 growers who, arguably, are also households. Compute the welfare implications of this and the broader land reform programme which made this possible.
Indeed when the China man smokes, Zimbabwe catches a livelihood.
When size of concern outstrips trade
I move on to Zimbabwe’s broad trade with the rest of the world. Trade between China and Zimbabwe grew 30 percent in the nine months to September, with Zimbabwe enjoying a surplus of US$279million, according to figures released by the Chinese Embassy here. Zimbabwe’s exports were up 44 percent and valued at US$597million, against Chinese imports of US$318million.
Of course the greater portion of Zimbabwe’s exports to China subsist in raw tobacco. Not diamonds as widely believed! Noteworthy is the fact that our imports from China are largely machinery.
China smokeThe Trade and Law Centre which captures trade statistics between Zimbabwe and the whole of the EU record a doubling of trade to US$888,12million in 2012, up from US$479million three years before in 2009. Of course sanctions made sure the trade between the bloc and Zimbabwe declined from an all-time high of US$1,2bn achieved in 2009, just before land reforms.
In fact the US$888,12million marks some decline from US$931,5 achieved in 2011, indicating some fluctuations but within a general upward trend in trade. Our exports are dominated by minerals but also include agricultural products.
Again, let me clinch the points. Let it be recorded that more of our finite mineral resources are going to the EU than to China, a point rarely acknowledged by our pseudo-European, African nationalist commentators!
Let it also be recorded that value of trade between Zimbabwe and China peeps that between Zimbabwe and the whole EU bloc. I hope we can give our policies and this notion of re-engagement with the West a sense of size and proportion. It makes little sense to go feverish about engaging people whose trade value to us is small and unpredictable, while bad mouthing those who are emerging as real trading partners. Let the size of our affection and concern be the size of our trade. Please!
The way to Brussels is via Brussels
How about boss America? Well, the US Department of Commerce says in the three quarters of this year, Zimbabwe has recorded a trade surplus of US$32million in its trade with America. Total trade between the two countries is worth US$106million.
The rises in the last three years have been marginal. Our exports to the Americans are predominantly minerals , then skins and a few agricultural commodities. Again, let our Eurocentric commentators take note — due note — of who is using up our finite mineral resources.
But a few more points are in order. The US$32 million trade surplus is a little shy from the US$20 million our companies have lost to the US by way of impounded receipts under the sanctions law, ZDERA. That makes America’s net cost to this economy huge, when read against the paltry US$32million surplus, so-called.
Our tobacco sales to Belgium mean more to us than our total trade with America. Surely it is much more than re-engaging the West; it is about quantifying the West’s value to us, and also forensically determining which polity in the whole western world is worth developing relations with.
Given Belgium’s role on our diamonds, Belgium is definitely worth cultivating, and Brussels is not reached through London or Washington.
China the investor
I move on to the area of investment. The Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) recently revealed that China emerges as a consistent top investor in Zimbabwe from 2010, with its investments contributing 72 percent, or US$670million from a total of US$930million worth of projects approved last year. By end of October, ZIA had approved US$374,8million worth of investments mainly in the areas of energy and mining.
Given Belgium’s role on our diamonds, Belgium is definitely worth cultivating, and Brussels is not reached through London or Washington.
In fact in 2012, China’s cumulative investments in the mining sector (gold, diamonds and chrome) totalled US$583million, or 62percent of the total US$688million FDI approvals for the entire Zimbabwean mining industry last year. China offers 40 tradeable minerals, all of them in Zimbabwe.
Agriculture amounted to US$18,6million of her investments, manufacturing US$35,5million, while US$23million went into services. Construction accounted for US$7,4million.
There is clear evidence of balanced Chinese appetite across sectors, with an emphasis on medium to large-scale projects.
When not looking West really helps
There is another surprise. Russia emerges second on investments, with approvals from it worth US$40,1million. Next came South Africa with US$39million, and UK with US$34million.
Next comes Mauritius with approvals worth US$25million. But of course these are figures on mere approvals. Real figures on investments which come into the country are far lower, albeit with China still dominating.
ZIA figures show China as having invested US$100million in the first five months of the year, followed by Malaysia with US$11million and South Africa with US$7million.
The key points to make is that China is targeting extractive industries which it is still developing. Presently it cannot explain who is chewing our finite mineral resources, although it could in due course. But its partnership approach to investments gives us an equal share in the exploitation of those resources.
More important, Zimbabwe’s healthy resource base means more Chinese FDI is more than likely. Secondly, Russia is to be watched as a growing investor in Zimbabwe, with Zimbabwe gaining more from associating and cultivating South Africa and Mauritius than the hoary UK, all along its traditional circumstantial investor and decade-long tormentor.
China does, the West’s endless excuses
Even more important, China is entering the infrastructural and energy areas, both of which are key enablers to economic recovery as envisaged under Zim Asset. A good pointer to China’s responsiveness to local beneficiation policies are the US$100million-worth of five chrome processing plants underway, one of which is now virtually complete, sited at Selous.
Contrast this with the Americans who have been here, exploiting our Chrome since UDI days when they refused to obey UN sanctions citing security concerns. Contrast this with British extractive companies which have been here for well over a century without beneficiating.
Contrast this with Zimplats which has been dropping all manner of arguments on why a platinum refinery is not yet possible. Early December shall witness a major Chinese investment in the cotton ginning sector.
Early December shall witness a major Chinese investment in the cotton ginning sector.
About this, let me not give away too much, except to say that job creation is going to be massive, both directly and indirectly. These are the hard facts, formidably backed by statistics. I take it we are all agreed that real jobs and real value come from value addition, not raw exports.
I apologise for this part which is so heavily laced with figures. But we needed it for what follows.
Another Caliban, again
I now turn to the dominant economic discourse in this country, all in the light of the above hard facts. One article which dominated headlines this week read: “Analysts, citizens slam Look East policy.”
The article expresses serious reservations about “the conduct of Asian investors in Zimbabwe”, adding “The Chinese in particular have become notorious for their violation of the labour laws, which in some instances involves long working hours, poor salaries and lack of protective clothing as well as physical abuse of employees.
They have also come under fire for failing to create employment amid allegations they are bringing cheap labour from their country. The extremely poor quality of products they sell here has become a major concern among consumers. Of late, the Chinese have been implicated in illegal activities such as smuggling of minerals and ivory poaching.”
Some economist is imported into the story — one Innocent Makwiramiti — who says the Chinese have failed to fill the void left by Western investors and have become “more looters than investors”.
“They have failed to create employment compared to Western investors, who come with their technology and skills and impart them to the locals,” adds the so-called economist.
It is almost the story of Caliban, the conquered native for whom gaining a new master — not getting emancipated from all mastery — seems a major milestone. It is so sad.
Why are you here, Chinese?
Then John Robertson weighs in: “Their objective is to make money for China and we should not be encouraging that kind of investment.” Then ZCTU’s Nkiwane who calls them “worst employers”. After Nkiwane comes ordinary black Zimbabweans from “Harare’s Central Business District”, all brought in to prove that “public opinion was very much against the Chinese.”
In reality, the article whips an anti-Chinese sentiment almost to xenophobic proportions. “I have not yet seen anything that would justify the Chinese staying here. Despite their presence, we still have a high unemployment rate unlike during the days of Western investors.
“They are only here because of Zanu-PF — their mission is to make money and go,” says one Last Chinodya from Mufakose. As a representative voice for us blacks, Chinodya sounds militant and nationalistic, averse to any occupation of national space by the Chinese. But only by the Chinese. No regard is paid to the rampant persisting unemployment, only matched by many westerners who remain here. So what justifies their staying here? And it is as if the small Chinese have toppled our dear, employing whites! Again, so, so sad!
We don’t need to look east!
In case you thought the above article is a fluke, here is the Zimbabwe Independent, a finance and business weekly. Its editorial comment this week, titled “We need coherent, pragmatic leaders”, rails against a hidebound, ideological approach to national issues by the political leadership, all in an increasingly complex and interdependent world. In part the editorial comment reads: “Zimbabwe is “looking east”, while the East is looking West and on every other direction.
Deng, with his cat metaphor, and Kwame Nkrumah’s words, long debunked this misleading linear thinking. The truth is we don’t need such things as the “Look East” policy; we need progressive thinking and strategies of economic development.
Government can’t afford to think within the “Us versus Them” premise; their policies and decisions must be based on research, data, technocratic advice and citizens needs. We live in a world of complex matrices and perplexing choices, so we need to be more nuanced and discerning in our understanding of issues. Crude and crass thinking doesn’t help anymore. Zimbabwe needs a coherent and pragmatic leadership, not insular and myopic rulers, more so when clashes over resources have become a political lightning rod in many mineral-rich countries like ours.” Of course in many ways the editorial reads like Manheru last week, except for very different reasons.
On whose behalf are we angry?
I want to raise key questions in the continuing discussion on our national visioning task. What factual and statistical basis supports Zimbabwe’s incipient but clearly growing anti-Chinese discourse in its economic arguments and visioning escapades? The above statistics clearly attest to a growing role for Chinese capital at a time of sanctions-induced severe contraction on the part of western capital, whether actual or prospective. What supports this reflexive deriding of Chinese capital which has waded into our market in spite of greater politics, against all caution? Are we dealing with an economic argument or a political attitude?
On whose behalf are we angry with the Chinese? . . .Once asked Arthur Mutambara.
If it’s a political attitude, whose is it, ours, congenitally ours, or induced and borrowed? The figures above show who has been moving Zimbabwe in its lean years. Who, in other words, has been stopping the country from collapsing. I would want to believe that is our real interest, collective national interest. So, in whose interest is this anti-Chinese sentiment which comes through us as raw anger, indigenous and very black? On whose behalf are we angry with the Chinese? It is a question Arthur Mutambara once raised, but we ducked responsibility for answering it by turning it into a rhetorical question.
Blaming China for western ruin
Or the obverse, before the rise of China as an economic powerhouse, western capital was dominant here, both before and after our Independence. By the mid nineties and certainly after the 2000 land reform programme, that capital deserted this market on political instructions and as part of building pressure against our taking back our land. The current industrial dysfunction has nothing to do with the Chinese. It has everything to do with western resistance to Zimbabwe’s post-independence nationalist policies before we looked East, everything to do with western economic sabotage to force the hand of local politics. Blair even wanted to follow that hostile action through with military action. Yet we don’t blame the offending West, don’t blame ourselves, our entitlement policies and the land we have recovered.
Accept that this is the price we pay for our freedom and heritage. No, we blame the Chinese, ostensibly for not replacing the westerners effectively after they have ruined our country, by creating many jobs for us and by transferring technology to us! Except the westerners took back their jobs and never injected new technology here, which is why this country beats the rest of the world as an industrial museum showcase for decrepit technologies. It is as if the West left in protest at the arrival of the Chinese, and not that the Chinese only coming in after the West has left in a huff.
Tony Blair even wanted to follow the West's hostile action against Zimbabwe through with military action. Yet we don’t blame the offending West, don’t blame ourselves, our entitlement policies and the land we have recovered.
Tony Blair even wanted to follow the West’s hostile action against Zimbabwe through with military action. Yet we don’t blame the offending West, don’t blame ourselves, our entitlement policies and the land we have recovered.
Don’t we sense we have a problem, ourselves as Zimbabweans and how we understand and appreciate our total circumstances? Surely it makes better sense to blame and attack the West for ruining our jobs and destroying our economy?
Reverse insularity
And then our understanding of rules for investors who come here. When we say Government must be pro-business and pro-investors, indeed berate it for being ideological in a pragmatic era, are we laying down ground rules for all investors regardless of colour, shape of face, height and geographical origin? Or are we hiding behind these seemingly broad, neutral rules to push through our pro-West ideological hide-boundedness whose flip side is the same ideological inflexibility we charge the political leadership with? When we say “we don’t need such things as the “Look East” policy”, are we not saying we only need “Look West” policy, and saying so with a sense of supreme flexibility, wisdom and fashionable bigotry? Are we not being “insular and myopic”, like our rulers against whom we reserve full rheum?
White, western and Rhodesian
Robertson says the objective of Chinese businesses “is to make money for China and we should not be encouraging that kind of investment.” Although I don’t know who “we” is, I still say fair enough. But what has been the objectives of British, American, German, Dutch, Swedish investments since 1890? For whom have they been making money? For the Chinese, for the Russians, for the Africans? Which investor in this country has made money for someone else other than themselves , their country and race?
Where are the national returns on the countless mining dumps, industrial chimneys, broken lives and livelihoods that are ours to count and endure as the once colonised? Robertson confuses me. And when his fellow Rhodesian – Eddie Cross – tells Parliament only this week that: “There is no investor in the world that is going to put a dollar on the table and have fifty-one cents taken by ZANU-PF,” might such a rule of thumb on investor handling encompass, accommodate the Chinese? Where would that leave Robertson and is arguments? And Cross makes remarks that yield an amusing yet far-reaching double-meaning: “We cannot expect any substantial new investment in Zimbabwe until we are able to guarantee
Cecil John Rhodes . . .The pioneer of colonialism. What has been the objectives of British, American, German, Dutch, Swedish investments since 1890 as they scrambled for Zimbabwe?
Cecil John Rhodes . . .The pioneer of colonialism. What has been the objectives of British, American, German, Dutch, Swedish investments since 1890 as they scrambled for Zimbabwe?
those investors power”! Could we concede such power to all investors, including the Chinese? Or an investor is more than he who brings in capital? He must be white, western or Rhodesian? What would be our stake as Africans in such a racialised definition?
Selective xenophobia
One senses not just double standards, but a deep-seated racism which we have met sometime in our history, but which we have never fully grasped by way of its full scope in history, its extraordinary adaptability in post-colonial, global times. What is worse, we have internalised it. Historically, racism developed in circumstances of colonial invasion, occupation and plunder. Whilst its core tenets were the same, it adapted itself to circumstances of subject nations and peoples against whom it was practised. We Africans mistakenly think we are the only victims of racism. No, we aren’t.
The Chinese, the Indians and the Latinos were. What is not known by many in Zimbabwe is that just as we blacks were profiled as indolent, infantile and lewd, the Chinese were characterised as sly, deceitful and given to stealing, so mischaracterised by the same British who dehumanised us here. Before British eyes, we were the same subjects who had to be redeemed from damnation. How different is this image from the dummy Robertson and his ilk are selling us today, in spite of China’s powerful role in global affairs? Don’t we see the incongruity of a black mouth spouting the same dehumanising epithets as was reserved for a fellow oppressed Chinese by the British in colonial heyday?
If China is so deceitful and so bad for nations, why is the West looking and courting East, something apparently unknown to the Zimbabwe Independent? But it is also funny that we black Zimbabweans are incited to hate the Chinese who gave us guns and the technology of liberation yesterday, give us technology and capital for development today, while loving uxoriously the very westerners who have crafted and imposed hurtful sanctions that daily ravage our lives and destroy our collective livelihoods. Or that we who have suffered more than 400 000 white intruders and occupiers here for well over a century, suddenly invent xenophobia against a handful of Chinese people who are here to do business with us, indeed have only been here less than a decade ago. Why are we taught to hate people with whom we have a shared colonial history, taught to hate each other by our common enemy?
Bearded infantiles
It helps to recall that one enduring ruse of imperialism is turn its real victims into its “freed” beneficiaries from another and even imaginary evil power invented solely to burnish its own otherwise glaring misdeeds and evil acts. So in 1890 the Shonas were not invaded, conquered, occupied and enslaved; they were saved from a marauding despot called Lobengula. So goes the colonial lore. Similarly, today Zimbabweans have to fear and be saved from the Chinese who loot their diamonds and “invest only for China”, and not from the British who have looted their country, independence, resources and personality since 1890.
Not saved from the same British who seek the old colonial mastery. I thought we had come of age, grown older than child-men and child-women of yore, bearded infantiles who are given new, diversionary scapegoats by their real enemies. That way we forget that China became a powerhouse not by smoking British opium, not by aping British ways, but by skillfully riding the hyena of capitalism, taming it until it accepted to have Chinese characteristics. I have no problem in Zimbabweans not wanting to lose their finite resources to the Chinese; what bothers me is their readiness to lose them to the West. And feeling most holy and righteous about it. Icho!
nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: CHINA, CHINESE, NATHANIEL MANHERU, SANCTIONS, TOBACCO
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(HERALD ZW) Editorial Comment: Tobacco boom, think of environment
November 16, 2013
THE land reform programme has been exactly what the doctor ordered, as the previously marginalised people are now proud owners of fertile land on which they are growing a variety of food and cash crops. Many people never imagined they would own pieces of land, let alone vast tracts in districts of high rainfall and very good soils as such areas were the preserve of white former farmers.
White former commercial farmers dominated the farming landscape with indigenous people working on the farms as labourers. Today, thanks to Zanu-PF’s people-centred policies, the majority of Zimbabweans have successfully turned the vast tracts of land into greenbelts of crops, bar the many challenges related to funding.
Before the land reform programme, the bulk of maize produced in the country came from communal and small-scale farmers as white former commercial farmers dominated the tobacco and horticulture sectors. Not many of us ever imagined that one day we would become big tobacco and horticulture growers.
Not many of us ever imagined that one day we would make a lot of money and improve our standard of living from tobacco production. Communal and small-scale farmers have made huge inroads into tobacco farming, with over 83 000 farmers registered by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board to grow the golden leaf this current farming season.
There has been a major shift by farmers from maize and cotton production to flue-cured tobacco largely because of the high returns.
Last season tobacco was auctioned at the floors at an average price of between US$4 and US$5 per kg, which translated to thousands of dollars for most farmers, especially those who managed to produce high yields.
Most tobacco farmers have been able to send their children to expensive schools, buy expensive cars and improved their general standard of living.
Such an improvement in the standard of living from tobacco proceeds has not escaped the eyes of cotton and maize farmers who have naturally shifted to tobacco growing.
While there is a lot of money in tobacco, we are, however, worried by the declining hectarages for food crops and the depletion of forests as tobacco curing is heavily dependent on firewood.
We have allowed many farmers to move into tobacco production without giving attention to the environmental degradation taking place.
Trees are fast disappearing in most tobacco growing districts and little, if not nothing at all, is being done to replace the trees being cut down.
At the rate at which farmers are abandoning other cash crops, such as maize and cotton for tobacco, it would not be surprising that soon the forests will be depleted and the future of tobacco growing would be under serious threat.
The alternative to firewood is coal but communal and small-scale farmers have not yet achieved yield levels to warrant them using coal for curing and still be able to make a profit.
Coal, as an alternative source of energy, is expensive for most farmers and this is why firewood has remained the best alternative.
It is the long-term future of tobacco growing that we are worried about and the sooner the issue of alternative energy sources is tackled the better for everyone given the contribution of tobacco to the Gross Domestic Product.
There is need to make coal available at very affordable prices in the tobacco growing areas and that credit facilities could also be arranged for the farmers with payment being administered through the auction floors as the farmers sell their crop.
It is even easier for those into contract farming to provide coal for curing as part of the inputs package.
We can, as a country, come up with legislation that no farmer would be allowed to grow tobacco without first making a payment for coal. It can, indeed, be done as a way to protect our forests.
Labels: LAND REFORM, TOBACCO
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(NEWZIMBABWE, BLOOMBERG) Tobacco farmers winners of land reform
No regrets ... 110,000 farmers have joined a sector once dominated by 5000
04/11/2013 00:00:00
by Bloomberg
BONUS Matashu points to a three-ton truck he bought for $15,000 in cash and says President Robert Mugabe’s often violent program of seizing white-owned farms and giving them to black Zimbabweans turned around his life.
“This is the best thing that could have happened to me and my family and the generality of black Zimbabweans,” the former machine operator said at his six-hectare farm near the tobacco-farming town of Karoi. “I now lead a far better life.”
Matashu, 34, was allocated land by the government in 2001 after a white-owned farm was seized and its former owner emigrated to South Africa, he said in an interview. He grew cotton for a decade before switching to tobacco. This year he earned $34,000 and won an award for being the best small-scale tobacco farmer in Karoi.
During the turbulence of the farm takeovers, tobacco production in what was the second-biggest exporter of the top quality variety of the crop known as flue-cured plunged to 48.3 million kilograms in 2008 from a record 236.7 million kilograms in 2000, according to the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association. Now it’s making a comeback, with this year’s 166.7 million kilograms earning about $612 million.
Mugabe said he embarked on the land-grab program in 2000 to address the expropriation of land from blacks during the 90 years of white rule that ended after a civil war in 1980. While it helped him win rural votes and retain power, the economy was gripped by a decade of contraction, with plummeting exports of crops ranging from tobacco to roses.
Farmers Killed
About 18 white farmers were killed in violent takeovers of their land while almost all of the country’s 620,000 permanent and seasonal farmworkers were driven away from their homes, John Worsley-Worswick, the head of Justice for Agriculture, a Harare-based lobby group.
Together with dependents those workers accounted for two million people, he said.
“We tackled the enemy head on and we got the land,” agriculture minister Joseph Made said. “They will never, never accept that there are now new owners on the land who have done wonders.”
Most of the rest Zimbabwe’s agricultural industry remains in crisis. The rose and horticulture export business, formerly worth $87 million a year, has largely disappeared.
Once a maize exporter, Zimbabwe has regularly imported the grain in recent years, buying almost 97,000 tons from South Africa since the beginning of May. That’s the most in a single season since at least the marketing season that ended in April 2010, according to South African Grain Information Service data.
Industry Change
The tobacco industry no longer resembles the pattern of large, white-owned, farms, which have been seized and resettled. In 2000 the crop was grown by 1,500 large-scale farmers while 5,000 small-scale growers produced 3 percent of the crop.
This year 110,000 small-scale farmers grew 65 percent of the crop, according to the government’s Tobacco Industry Marketing Board. While most of the tobacco used to be auctioned most is now grown under contract for leaf merchants. Companies including Universal Corp. and Alliance International Inc. buy the crop.
More than a fifth of the growers were registered this year, and farmers are being encouraged to grow the crop in the more arid region of Matabeleland, where little tobacco has been produced before.
“It took the minority more than 50 years to reach 220 million kilograms,” said Lovemore Chikweya, regional coordinator for the TIMB in Nyamandhlovu. “With these new farmers that number can and will be surpassed within five years,” he said, forecasting production at 200 million kilograms in 2014.
China Exports
With the violence associated with the land reform program and a series of disputed election resulting in sanctions from the European Union and the U.S., Zimbabwe’s tobacco farmers are now exporting more of their crop to Asia.
“Our exports to China have grown by over 50 percent,” said Rodney Ambrose, chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association.
“We have also established new markets particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia.”
This year Chinese buyers acquired $197 million worth of tobacco while Belgium bought $102 million, according to the TIMB.
Zimbabwean tobacco sold for an average of about $3.67 a kilogram this year, the highest since at least 1990, compared with $3.65 for tobacco produced in Brazil, one of the country’s biggest competitors, according to Ambrose.
“People are seeing that you can grow the crop and it comes in handy because the returns are much higher compared to wheat and cabbages,” Shandu Gumede, a 43-year-old farmer in Matabeleland, said in an interview. “I have no regrets.”
Labels: BLOOMBERG, LAND REFORM, TOBACCO
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Zambia, Zim and Malawi oppose stiffer legislation on tobacco
By Gift Chanda
Fri 01 Nov. 2013, 14:00 CAT
SOUTHERN African countries have opposed stiffer tobacco legislation to compel them to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products.
Francois van der Merwe, chief executive officer of the Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa (TISA), said the countries, including Zambia, are concerned at the growing trend to introduce cigarette packaging regulations that encroach on existing legal trademarks.
Ukraine and Honduras are reviving a dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) challenging Australian laws that introduced the so-called "plain packaging" requirements regarding the appearance and packaging of tobacco products.
Inclusive of significant trademark restrictions, the legislation requires tobacco products to be sold in standardised, olive-green packs with large graphic health warnings on both sides of the pack.
But van der Merwe said, "Any measure that goes beyond what is necessary to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco by limiting trademarks of legal products, runs the risk of achieving many unintended consequences for years to come".
"Extreme regulations, such as standardised packs, as in Australia will make it difficult to differentiate between tobacco products and will make counterfeiting easier, leading to a further rise in illicit trade," he said.
He explained that illicit trade in tobacco products was already of considerable proportion in the Southern African region, affecting all stakeholders throughout the tobacco value chain.
"Any increase in illicit trade due to extreme regulation which is not based on evidence and science, and on which full consultation has not taken place, will have disastrous negative consequences for countries in the region," said van der Merwe.
"SADC members Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi have registered their concerns around the impact of extreme tobacco packaging legislation, with all three having notified the WTO of their interest in becoming third parties to the Ukraine dispute on tobacco plain packaging. This is on the basis of the
contribution of tobacco to their economies, a point on which they refuse to be mute participants and powerless negotiators in international forums where the outcome impacts their economies."
Plain packaging was introduced in Australia in December last year, and there has been manoeuvres by anti-smoking pressure groups to have African countries introduce the law after the big tobacco companies in Australia lost a lawsuit challenging the regulation.
Tobacco is grown in six out of 15 member states of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), including Zambia, and in all of the five tobacco growing member states, the crop is a key export earner with a significant contribution of between three to 10 per cent to the GDP of those countries.
Labels: TISA, TOBACCO, WTO
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Zambia, Zim and Malawi oppose stiffer legislation on tobacco
By Gift Chanda
Fri 01 Nov. 2013, 14:00 CAT
SOUTHERN African countries have opposed stiffer tobacco legislation to compel them to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products.
Francois van der Merwe, chief executive officer of the Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa (TISA), said the countries, including Zambia, are concerned at the growing trend to introduce cigarette packaging regulations that encroach on existing legal trademarks.
Ukraine and Honduras are reviving a dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) challenging Australian laws that introduced the so-called "plain packaging" requirements regarding the appearance and packaging of tobacco products.
Inclusive of significant trademark restrictions, the legislation requires tobacco products to be sold in standardised, olive-green packs with large graphic health warnings on both sides of the pack.
But van der Merwe said, "Any measure that goes beyond what is necessary to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco by limiting trademarks of legal products, runs the risk of achieving many unintended consequences for years to come".
"Extreme regulations, such as standardised packs, as in Australia will make it difficult to differentiate between tobacco products and will make counterfeiting easier, leading to a further rise in illicit trade," he said.
He explained that illicit trade in tobacco products was already of considerable proportion in the Southern African region, affecting all stakeholders throughout the tobacco value chain.
"Any increase in illicit trade due to extreme regulation which is not based on evidence and science, and on which full consultation has not taken place, will have disastrous negative consequences for countries in the region," said van der Merwe.
"SADC members Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi have registered their concerns around the impact of extreme tobacco packaging legislation, with all three having notified the WTO of their interest in becoming third parties to the Ukraine dispute on tobacco plain packaging. This is on the basis of the
contribution of tobacco to their economies, a point on which they refuse to be mute participants and powerless negotiators in international forums where the outcome impacts their economies."
Plain packaging was introduced in Australia in December last year, and there has been manoeuvres by anti-smoking pressure groups to have African countries introduce the law after the big tobacco companies in Australia lost a lawsuit challenging the regulation.
Tobacco is grown in six out of 15 member states of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), including Zambia, and in all of the five tobacco growing member states, the crop is a key export earner with a significant contribution of between three to 10 per cent to the GDP of those countries.
Labels: TISA, TOBACCO, WTO
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(SUNDAY MAIL ZW) ‘Land reform a success’
Sunday, 01 September 2013 03:58
Sunday Mail Reporter
Zimbabwe’s land reform programme has been a resounding success as evidenced by the manner in which millions of lives have been positively transformed through agriculture, the First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe has said.
Speaking to journalists soon after touring several stands at the Harare Agricultural Show on Friday, Amai Mugabe highlighted the tobacco industry as a life changer.
She said she was happy to note that the majority of tobacco growers were beneficiaries of the land reform programme.
“I was impressed by the tobacco sector displays. It’s clear that the people of Zimbabwe are good at growing tobacco and are benefiting from growing it,” she said.
“It’s interesting to note that the land reform programme is already bearing fruit since the majority of tobacco growers are smallholder farmers.
“The (tobacco) prices are good and motivating farmers to go back to the field unlike what is happening in cotton where most farmers have withdrawn from its production.
“I see some schools are exhibiting agricultural products and I would like to urge youths not to do farming for the sake of passing the agriculture subject only; they should have their own farms.
“We instituted the land reform programme with the youths in mind.”
Amai Mugabe added that she was pleased by the Grain Marketing Board’s commercial projects.
“I was also impressed by GMB’s commercial projects, they told me that they are going to commission a stockfeed milling plant in November, which is a good thing since it will assist the parastatal to generate income,” she said.
Labels: GRACE MUGABE, LAND REFORM, TOBACCO
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Star Tobacco undertakes to empower farmers with skills
By Kabanda Chulu
Mon 02 Sep. 2013, 14:00 CAT
ZAMBIAN small-scale farmers should be empowered with new skills and techniques if the country is to become a regional tobacco producer, says Star Tobacco International chief executive officer Iqbal Lambat.
In an interview after making an investment presentation to the Zambia Development Agency, Zambia National Farmers Union and the Tobacco Board of Zambia, Lambat said his company would introduce new farming models aimed at increasing the production of tobacco.
"We are not interested in buying and selling only but we want to engage smallholder farmers on the three aspects of mechanisation, irrigation and education. This way, they shall improve yields because of the new skills they will acquire," Lambat said.
"We shall put them in clusters like small groups, where they will share resources and ideas on tobacco growing. Actually, these models we intend to introduce have worked very well in China and India, and this is why we want to replicate them in Zambia through the significant investments that we shall undertake in the country."
Tobacco Board of Zambia chairman Ben Mahombe said with good sponsorship, Zambian farmers had potential to produce huge volumes of tobacco.
"The tobacco industry is making an annual contribution of more than K500 million to the economy of Zambia, of which about 66 per cent of the total tobacco is produced by small-scale farmers, who include women. While the industry is doing fine, the production costs continue to be high in the range of K20,000 per hectare," Mahombe said.
"Therefore, almost all farmers need financial support by way of sponsorship of tobacco production if they have to produce tobacco of good quality on the market."
He said the coming of Star Tobacco International at a time when small-scale farmers needed sponsorship for their tobacco programmes was a blessing to the industry.
"We have had initial discussions with Star Tobacco since February, and their coming clearly shows that the company is serious about participating in the Zambian tobacco industry," said Mahombe.
Labels: AGRICULTURE, TOBACCO
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(MnG SA) Rise of black tobacco barons in Zimbabwe
28 Jun 2013 00:00 Ray Ndlovu
High prices are reviving the crop from its slump, but the demographics are altogether different.
A strong stench of tobacco fills the air at the Boka Tobacco Auction floors on the outskirts of Harare, but it does not appear to bother the new farmers eager to sell their crop. Loud chatter takes place among the groups of women seated on the cold floor, while the men stand and talk among themselves, keeping a watchful eye on their prize produce as they wait for the start of business.
A cafeteria, located at one end of the auction floor, provides hot meals for the farmers, with a sizeable queue of the hungry gathering to buy sadza and meat. The profile of the tobacco farmer has certainly changed. Gone are the predominantly white, mostly male commercial farmers. After the chaotic land-reform exercise in 2000, resettled small-scale farmers both male and female – some coming to the floor with their toddlers – have now waded into the tobacco business.
Upstairs are the snug and carpeted offices of the auction floor. An imposing portrait of the late founder of the auction floor, Roger Boka, towers over the large mahogany table at the centre of the boardroom. With several other photos of the tobacco baron and his family looking on in the room, one cannot shake off the feeling that the late Boka is keeping a watchful eye over his empire.
On an iPad, sales people present the figures for the day to Rudo Boka, the chief executive of Boka Tobacco Auction floor and the daughter of the late Roger. Boka says the updates give real-time information on the best selling farmer each day, the amounts in cheques paid out, those farmers who have cashed their cheques at the bank, and the amount of tobacco sold. She points out one of the highest selling tobacco farmers the previous day, with a crop worth $10000 sold. "His crop was very good. It is likely he has some more at home and he will bring it to the auction floor."
At their peak, white commercial farmers produced 236-million kilograms of tobacco in 2000, but by 2008, production had slumped to only 48-million kilograms. Now, 90000 newly resettled black farmers grow tobacco on between one and two hectares of land each. Last year, Zimbabwe’s tobacco exports raked in $771-million from the 144.5-million kilograms of tobacco sold at an average of $5.94 a kg. Andrew Matibiri, the chief executive of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, indicated that of the 90000 newly resettled farmers that had registered to grow and sell tobacco this season, more than 20000 black farmers were first-time growers.
Alarm bells for maize, cotton sectors
A combination of high international prices for tobacco and demand for the Zimbabwe-grown crop from foreigners such as South Africa – the highest buyer of tobacco – China and the United Arab Emirates has been the central plank for the rise of the black tobacco farmer. The price offered for other agriculture produce such as maize and cotton remains subdued, with agricultural experts sounding alarm bells that those sectors of agriculture are under threat as scores of farmers of cotton, once a prized crop, are turning to tobacco.
The cotton price is $0.35 a kilogram, while maize farmers continue to haggle with the Grain Marketing Board, the sole buyer of maize, over the payment of a sustainable price and the debt owed from last season’s crop. According to the tobacco board, 151-million kilograms of tobacco have been sold so far and the projected target for this year is 17-million kilograms from 77910 hectares of land put under tillage. That increase would mark a 38% improvement from the 56377 hectares under tobacco tillage last season. "We are still confident that we will get to the 170-million kilogram target," said Matibiri.
Professor Sam Moyo, the director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies, said the quality of the tobacco crop had been steadily improving. "In the first five years, the quality was low, but in the past three years, there are now new growers and a lot more gains are possible in the future," Moyo said.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti has come under fire from Zanu-PF for not channelling more funds to support tobacco production. With no collateral, the banks have been sceptical about financing new black farmers, leaving many unable to increase their productivity.
Labels: TENDAI BITI, TOBACCO, ZIMBABWE
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Tobacco earnings top US$577 million
03/07/2013 00:00:00
by NewZiana
ZIMBABWE has earned US$577.3 million from the sale of 156.2 million kgs sold at an average price of US$3.70 per kg since the marketing season opened at the beginning of February.
The volume of tobacco sold to date is a 20.4 percent improvement from the 130 million kgs worth US$480 million sold during the comparable period last year.
Data released by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board show that of the total tobacco sold 103 million kgs were through contract sales while the remainder went under the hammer.
The 2013 flue-cured tobacco selling season will close on Friday, July 5 after 99 selling days while the 2012 selling season lasted 145 days.
Last year, the country produced about 144.5 million kg of tobacco against a projection of 130 million kg, with sales raking in US$527.6 million.
This season, 170 million kgs were targeted to go under the hammer.
Since the adoption of multiple foreign currencies the tobacco industry has become one of the fastest to recover from the economic meltdown of the past decade.
The sector has been on a rebound as over 70 0000 farmers registered to grow the crop this season.
Many farmers have been shifting from other crops such as cotton to tobacco due to the favourable prices.
Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe's major agricultural exports, accounting for 10.7 percent of gross domestic product.
South Africa is the leading market for Zimbabwe's tobacco this year with 10.1 million kgs worth about US$30 million having been exported so far.
Other major export destinations for Zimbabwean tobacco include China and Russia.
Labels: TOBACCO
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(NEWZIMBABWE) US$538m realised from tobacco sales
12/06/2013 00:00:00
by Business Reporter
SOME 145.2 million kilogrammes of tobacco have been delivered to the country’s auction floors since the beginning of the selling season in February, surpassing the 2012 final output of 144.5 million kg.
Figures from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) also show that $537.5 million has so far been realised from the sales.
“Current seasonal sales at 145.2 million kg have now surpassed the 2012 final output which was 144.5 million kg. During the corresponding 79th selling day in 2012 more than 116.6 million kg were sold,” the TIMB said in a statement.
“The prevailing prices at all selling points remained stable. The seasonal average price for 2013 is likely to slide down below US$3.70/kg as less good quality crop continue to dominate the market.”
The seasonal average price for this year’s crop was $3.70 a kg compared $3.73 a kg during the same period last year.
TIMB said 94.7 million kg of the delivered tobacco was from contract farming, while 50.5 million kg had been delivered under the auction system.
The contract system has so far generated $357.5 million while the auction arrangement has raised $179.9 million.
The tobacco marketing board revealed that 1.98 million bales had so far been laid at the auction floors compared to 1.49 million bales during the comparable period in 2012.
This season 83,012 bales have been rejected compared to 78,284 last year.
Recently, the tobacco marketing board expressed optimism that this year’s deliveries would surpass the targeted 170 million kg although most of the registered growers have delivered their crop.
However, some of the farmers wait to sell the bulk of their crop towards the end of the season.
Labels: TOBACCO
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Take advantage of favourable prices, Chanje advises tobacco farmers
By Christopher Miti in Chipata
Tue 30 Apr. 2013, 14:00 CAT
CHIEF Chanje of the Chewa people in Chipata has advised tobacco farmers to take advantage of this year's favourable prices clear their loans with out grower companies.
Last year's tobacco marketing season saw a significant decline in prices when a kilogramme of high grade tobacco sold for less than KR10.
In an interview yesterday, chief Chanje said he does not expect tobacco farmers in his area to default.
He said in the past seasons, he had been receiving complaints from out grower companies about the defaulting farmers.
"I would like to make a passionate appeal to the farmers to ensure that they pay back loans to the out-grower companies. Once we pay back loans then next time they are also going to give us loans. And to out-grower companies, please let's buy tobacco according to the grade of the commodity. It will be bad if farmers will start complaining about the way their tobacco will be bought and end up failing to pay loans," chief Chanje said.
He reminded out-grower companies to start paying farmers who had already sold their tobacco. Chief Chanje said some farmers who sold their tobacco about two weeks ago had not yet been paid.
"People who sold their tobacco should get their monies because there are a lot of things that need money. I would also like to appeal to farmers to take extra care of the food they have grown because this year's rainfall pattern was not very good so they should not sell everything," he said.
Chief Chanje said some companies were buying the crop at as high as KR15.7 per kilogramme, adding that he had not received any complaint from his people over this season's tobacco prices.
Labels: CHIEF CHANJE, CHIEFS, EASTERN PROVINCE, TOBACCO
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TIMB brings sanity to auction floors
Friday, 15 March 2013 00:00
Agriculture Reporter
The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has brought sanity and improved services for farmers at the auction floors, tobacco growers have confirmed.This has not been the case in the past seasons where the first days of auctioning were marked with congestion and farmers complaining of poor accommodation and payment system.
Most tobacco farmers said they were grateful to the TIMB as they were getting better treatment at the auction floors.
There are three auction floors, Tobacco Sales Floor, Boka Tobacco Floors and Premier Tobacco Floors who were licenced by the TIMB to participate this season after meeting requirements which included having adequate accommodation and ablution facilities, banks with cash, decent canteens and safe water, among other things.
Karoi farmer, Mr Joel Marange said he was impressed with the decent accommodation and could bath at the auction floors, a facility that was not available during the past years.
Mt Darwin farmer, Mrs Lena Makwanya said getting her money soon after selling made life easier as she does not have to spend days camped at the floors as was the situation in the past few years.
“Now I do not have to spend days waiting to get my money because the process is now shorter and I can go back to the farm after selling my crop the same day,” she said.
TIMB chairperson Mrs Monica Chinamasa urged farmers to register and submit their crop estimates before delivering their crop for sale.
“The cardinal rule of booking first then deliver today and sell tomorrow, is meant for planning purposes and ensuring order at the floors,” she said.
A number of growers have however, continued to bring their crop without having made prior booking arrangements.
TSF managing director, Mr James Mutambanesango said although the farmers were not sent back they first have to register before selling their crop and this might result in delays.
He said some of the farmers were new and not aware of the procedures they had to follow when selling tobacco.
Meanwhile, tobacco deliveries have increased from an average of 70 000 kilogrammes during the first days to above 200 000 kilogrammes per day.
There has been a slight decline in prices this season compared to last season. Farmers have also complained that the highest price at the auction floors has remained at US$4, 99 since last season while the contract sales are registering prices as high as US$5,70 per kilogramme.
At the opening of the 2013 selling season in February, TIMB noted that last season there was an uncomfortable difference between auction floor and contract prices for similar grades which should be corrected this season.
Labels: JOEL MARANGE, TIMB, TOBACCO
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Tobacco sales generate US$61 million
13/03/2013 00:00:00
by Business Reporter
THE Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) says Zimbabwe has so far earned US$61,1 million from tobacco sales, a 7.4 percent increase from US$ 56, 9 million realised same period last year.
TIMB says at least 10,9 million kg of tobacco were sold through contract sales since the beginning of the 2013 marketing season a month ago while the remainder went under the hammer.
Approximately 216,028 bales were delivered to the three auction floors - Boka Tobacco, Tobacco Sales and Premier Tobacco - while 16,909 bales were rejected.
On daily total sales, 679 499kg worth US$2, 6 million of the golden leaf were sold day 19 compared to last year’s figure of 576,932 kg worth US$2 million.
Last year, Zimbabwe produced about 144.5 million kg of tobacco, surpassing the projected 130 million kg, with sales raking in US$527,6 million.
Since the adoption of multiple foreign currencies in Zimbabwe, the tobacco industry has helped fire the economy’s recovery from the meltdown of the past decade with some70,000 farmers registered to grow the crop this season.
Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe’s major agricultural exports, accounting for 10,7 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDO). Major export destinations for the crop include China, Britain, South Africa, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius and Russia.
Labels: TIMB, TOBACCO
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COMMENT - Gee, those 'friends and cronies of Mugabe' got really busy growing tobacco after dollarisation, didn't they? Zimbabwe tobacco exports crashed when the Zimbabwe Dollar crashed - both in 2002, not 1999 or 2000 when the 'farm invasions' started - and it rebounded with dollarisation. It was caused completely by the destruction of the Zimbabwe Dollar. So what destroyed the Zimbabwe Dollar in 2002? Well that was ZDERA of 2001 going into effect on Jan. 1st 2002. Zdera caused the fall of the Zimbabwe Dollar in 2002 which then caused the collapse of tobacco exports, and dollarisation eliminated inflation and caused the 280% rebound in tobacco production and exports the year thereafter. No sudden increase in tobacco growing by 'friends and cronies of Mugabe', but of the hundreds of thousands of families who benefited from land reform.
Zimbabwe Dollar/US Dollar Chart, courtesy of the Economist Intelligence Unit notice the fall in 2002, and business as usual throughout 2001 and 2000.
Tobacco earnings up 3 percent
10/03/2013 00:00:00
by NewZiana
ZIMBABWE’S tobacco industry has earned US$51.7 million since the marketing season began in February, an increase from $1.4 million over the same period last year. The sector sold 14.6 million kg of tobacco at an average of US$3.54 per kg, up from 13.8 million kg sold last year.
Statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board show at least 9.58 million kg of tobacco were sold through contract sales while the remainder went under the hammer.
Last year, Zimbabwe produced about 144.5 million kg of tobacco and raked in US$527.6 million sales, surpassing the projected 130 million kg.
Since the adoption of multiple foreign currencies, the tobacco industry has become one of the fastest to recover from the economic meltdown over the last decade.
The sector has been on a rebound as over 70,0000 farmers have registered to grow tobacco this season.
Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe's major agricultural exports and accounts for 10.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Major export destinations include China, UK, South Africa, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius and Russia.
COMMENTS
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Nkoko365
how much tobacco and maize or mineral output has tsvangirai personally funded, harvested or brought to the market
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lawrencestoke
HAHA looking for a job?? The problem with MDC dimwits is that you look for jobs while others are looking for EMPLOYEES. You want to be owned and looked after nevarungu ka? Ndopanoperera pfungwa dzenyu ipapo. Idiots.
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Gandadema
Bassman, if you are still looking for a job at this point in Zimbabwe you are a disgrace to your family, own a farm, mine or an industry even a fishery to be counted amongst men.
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Gandadema
Good point Nkoko.
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lawrencestoke
Go on black farmers!!! The land is yours. We thank God for the increase. Some people in the MDC still believe that all land was given to Mugabe's friends and is lying fallow. The facts on the ground are different. The newly landed "small people" have greatly benefited from their ancestral lands and God is blessing them year after year. MDC believes that only white people should be farming cash crops. The treacherous ones are amongst us but I'm glad many of us have opened our eyes and we see them for what they are - PUPPETS WORKING FOR WESTERN INTERESTS.
Labels: TOBACCO
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