High expectations on this year’s tobacco market
Growers have expressed preparedness for the opening of this year’s tobacco selling season which is scheduled to start on Wednesday 10 April 2024.
Tama Farmers Trust, the umbrella body for tobacco farmers indicated that growers are excited to sell their leaf after several months of taking care of it on the fields.
Tama Farmers Trust chief executive officer Nixon Lita said: “We are well-prepared, delivery is planned to start this week to the markets. At the same time grading and baling (packaging) continue in farms with upper leaf.
“Expectations are high, after nine months in the field farmers would want to see benefits from their sweat.
“Much as rainfall pattern hasn’t been encouraging for January and February, but March rains provided relief and plant growth improved.”
Lita has, however, advised growers to ensure they adhere to all quality assurance procedures for their leaf to attract better prices stressing that buyers would go for quality even if demand is higher than supply.
“Quality looks good and we hope farmers will maintain standards as emphasised by agricultural advisers.
“We would want farmers to avoid common mistakes like mixing grades, high moisture leaf, non-tobacco related materials, and all that so that they maximise benefits on prices per grade,” Lita said.
The opening of the season comes at a time the Tobacco Commission (TC) says tobacco production could jump 17 percent to 140 million kilogrammes (kg) from 120 million kg in 2023.
In a separate interview, TC public relations officer Telephorus Chigwenembe said the commission expects a successful season considering that buyers are demanding more than 170 million kg.
He said: “The commission expects another successful tobacco marketing season because of high levels of interest from companies that would like to buy the leaf this year.
“We, therefore, expect good competition that will translate into competitive prices for the leaf.”
JTI Leaf Malawi corporate affairs and communications director Limbani Kakhome said there are high prospects of a good marketing season.
He said: “At the beginning of the season, production was impacted negatively depending on localised weather patterns.
“However, with the resurgence of the rains in March, much of the crop has recovered and production should be relatively good.”
During the 2023 tobacco marketing season, the country earned $282.62 million after selling more than 120 million kg of the leaf at an average price of $2.35 per kg.
