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Tobacco
industry collapse
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted
from Weekly Media Update 2004-13
Monday March 29th - Sunday April 4th 2004
The obsession
with painting a rosy picture of government's controversial land
reform saw its media downplaying problems besetting the tobacco
industry following the opening of the tobacco-selling season recently.
The trouble-plagued season, which expects a record low delivery
of about 60 million kilogrammes, started on a low note with farmers
mainly unhappy with the foreign currency exchange rate at the floors.
Instead of openly discussing these matters, the government-controlled
media merely glossed over the confusion reigning in the sector.
The private media was once again left with the responsibility of
highlighting the origins of the deep-seated problems eroding what
was once Zimbabwe's single largest foreign currency earner. Though
acknowledging the country's tumbling tobacco production "from a
record 236 million kilogrammes during the 1999/2000 season to a
paltry 60 million kilogrammes" during the 2003/4 season despite
an increase in tobacco farmers "from 1 493 growers in 1990 to 25
600 last season", The Herald (29/3)
would not explore the reasons behind this collapse. Rather, it papered
over these worrying statistics by alleging that "stakeholders in
the industry said the country has the potential to regain its productive
capacity" through its good infrastructure such as "research centres,
extension services and invaluable expertise on the part of the farmers".
Similarly, ZTV (31/03,8pm) quoted Farmers' Development Trust executive
director Lovegot Tendengu expressing optimism that the situation
would improve: "We have been saying that the smallholder farmer
was the agricultural future of this country [even] our maize is
coming from the smallholder farmer. Virtually all our cotton comes
from the smallholder farmer and naturally the same was going to
happen to tobacco." But The Zimbabwe Independent (2/4) was categorical.
The paper's columnist, Eric Bloch, cited many factors responsible
for the "near demise of Zimbabwe' s most important industry", chief
among them government's controversial agrarian reforms.
The reforms, which Bloch alleged were "most ill-conceived, destructive
and foolhardy", reduced "the total number of commercial farmers
by more than 90%". This, coupled with other limitations such as
funding problems, escalating production costs and the progressive
collapse of infrastructure, was choking the sector to death.
The Daily Mirror (1/4) also bemoaned problems bedeviling the industry.
It quoted Tobacco Association (ZTA) president Duncan Miller as saying
the tobacco crop will continue to decline, in part because of the
high cost of production. He said even good prices at the auction
sales "would be below cost" because the exchange rate at parallel
markets during the planting season varied between $7 000 and $10
000 to the US$.
This found currency in the Zimbabwe Independent, which reported
that the tobacco auctions had actually kicked off with a "serious
tug-of-war between farmers and buyers over prices resulting in a
record withdrawal of the crop from the floors". The paper quoted
farmer David Chiguvare saying most established farmers cancelled
the selling of their tobacco "following news that the auction rate
had plummeted from $5,000 to an average of $4,200 to the US dollar".
However, the government media alleged things were going smoothly
at the tobacco auctions as illustrated by ZTV (30/3, 31/3, 8pm)
and the Sunday News (4/4) story: Tobacco prices firm despite poor
deliveries, low exchange rates.
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fact sheet
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