Few register to grow tobacco—TCC

Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) has bemoaned the low number of farmers that have registered to grow the crop in the 2015/16 season, which the country’s tobacco regulatory body says is below target.

This comes against a background of the official registration exercise winding up today.

TCC data indicate that as of Wednesday last week, 22 884 clubs and estates had registered to grow tobacco since the start of the exercise in August.

TCC was hoping to register 10 000 more farmers by the close of the exercise today.

During the same period last year, the commission registered 39 853 clubs and estates.

TCC technical and operations manager Fred Kamvazina while hinting at the possibility of extending the registration period in an interview last week, attributed the decline to challenges being faced by the farmers.

“We had network challenges at the start of the season for close to a month which also affected the exercise, but we managed to pick up when the problem was sorted.

“We feel that we are having a decline in the numbers because some clubs are yet to pay their registration fees, hence we cannot include them on the registered list. The other reason could be that some farmers are pulling out of the system.”

He, however, said that the development will not have any impact on tobacco production as farmers operate according to allocated quotas.

Kamvazina said this season, TCC will be strict in terms of crop size management requirements.

However, AHL group corporate affairs manager, Mark Ndipita, in an interview last week said those opting out of the system are bogus clubs who had for a long time been duping farmers.

“We believe that TCC is clearing the system. In the past, there have been a number of bogus clubs that have been plying their business illegally thereby duping legitimate farmers of their rightful earnings,” he said.

In an earlier interview, TCC chief executive officer Albert Changaya said international tobacco buyers in the 2015/16 will buy eight percent less than what was produced in the last growing season which is 192.6 kilogrammes (kg).

This year, Malawi earned $337.3 million (about K189 billion) from tobacco compared to $366.3 million (K205 billion) last year. n