Harare (New Ziana) – At least 29 805 hectares of land has been put under tobacco so far for the 2022/23 summer cropping season, industry officials have said.
Planting of rain–fed tobacco is still underway as it began recently when the country started receiving rains.
Currently, only 18 percent of Zimbabwe’s tobacco crop is grown under irrigation, and government intends to expand this to at least 40 percent to ramp up production, and also in order to avoid relying on unpredictable rains.
Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) public affairs officer, Chelesani Tsarwe told New Ziana that the hectares of land put under tobacco is more than the 28 648 hectares planted last year during the same period.
“On irrigated tobacco, we have 17 496 hectares for the 2022/23 season compared to 18 831 hectares from last year,” she said.
Acting TIMB chief executive officer, Emmanuel Matsvaire, said: “The planted crop is doing well. There are no problems so far.”
At least 122 000 growers registered to grow and sell tobacco during the 2021/22 cropping season, 95 percent of whom are under contract.
Also commonly referred to as “the golden leaf”, tobacco is the country’s biggest agricultural export and second largest single commodity export after gold.
Last year, tobacco raked in around US$800 million from exports.
New Ziana
