Dry spells dampen tobacco outlook
Tama Farmers Trust says the delayed onset of rains and dry spells will limit tobacco output and farmers will be unable to meet this season’s buyers’ demand at 213 million kilogrammes (kg)
Tama Farmers Trust president Abiel Kalima Banda said in an interview on Monday that tobacco, which is the country’s main export crop and foreign exchange earner, is different from other crops as it cannot be replanted easily.

He said replanting tobacco requires a restart of the process from nursery and it takes at least two months.
Kalima Banda, a long-time tobacco farmer, said: “We will have the correct picture soon because tobacco stakeholders led by Tobacco Commission [TC] are on the ground conducting the first round tobacco production estimate survey.
“However, based on experience, this year we cannot achieve the 213 million kg demanded by buyers.”
The first round tobacco production estimate survey started on January 13 and is expected to end on January 31 2025.
TC spokesperson Telephorus Chigwenembe said in an interview on Monday that the recent rains in some parts of the country revived hopes of the crop’s survival.
“Weeks of dry spells in some parts of the country started to dampen expectations of a good yield in the 2024/2025 tobacco farming season, but the recent rains have revived hopes,” he said.
Chigwenembe said teams comprising data collection members from players in the tobacco industry are in the field conducting the survey.
Tama Farmers Trust chief executive officer Nixon Lita said apart from the impact of dry spells, farmers will be unable to meet the 213 million buyers’ demand due to lack of capacity, which limits growers.
He said: “The main reason is lack of capacity because farmers that did not do well in 2024 will find it hard to raise financing for fertiliser and labour.
“Those that produced and sold in 2024 have the potential to increase production as they benefited from the good prices that prevailed, especially taking into consideration the fact that the earnings were in dollars.”
During the last tobacco sales season, the country raked in $396.9 (about K694.9 billion) from the leaf sold at an average price of $2.98 ( aboutK5 217) per kg, a rise from the previous season’s $282.1 million (about K494 billion) at average price of $2.14 (about K3 747) per kg.
In terms of production, the country sold 133 million kg during the season against buyers’ demand at 190 million kg.
Tobacco remains Malawi’s main foreign exchange earners, contributing more to forex earnings and the tobacco industry provides employment to millions of people along its value chain.