Malawi cautions tobacco farmers against overproduction
Auction Holdings Limited (AHL) has asked tobacco farmers to stick to set quotas to curb overproduction that saturates the market and pushes down prices.
AHL floors manager for Chinkhoma Auction Floors in Kasungu, Stanley Amselimo, made the remarks at Nsalu in Lilongwe when the tobacco auctioneer embarked on a campaign to prepare farmers for the new tobacco farming season.
“The problem of production has to do mainly with the registration process, which is done at TCC [Tobacco Control Commission]. The production was higher than what was agreed when registering, so this affects the market greatly,” he said.
Amselimo said civic education on the need to stick to agreed quotas for farmers on the integrated production system (IPS) is critical in tackling over production.
“It is a big problem, there is little control. Those on IPS produce enough for their quotas, but also decide to produce for the traditional auction market,” he said.
TCC chief executive officer Bruce Munthali said recently that while the market handled large volumes of tobacco within a short space of time and witnessed low rejection rates, overproduction was still a major concern.
He said while the concern of overproduction is also prevailing in neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi did not suffer from high market returns of tobacco as the other countries, but warned the trend was not sustainable.
