Mega farms key to boosting tobacco output—official

Ministry of Agriculture has urged tobacco industry players to adopt government’s initiative of mega farms to improve the volumes of the crop on the competitive global market.

Speaking on Monday in Lilongwe during this year’s tobacco industry conference, the ministry’s controller of agriculture extension and technical services Alfred Mwenefumbo said currently Malawi barely has any mega farms in the tobacco industry.

He said: “Tobacco is here for a long time because it is our economy’s main stay.

“We want stakeholders to align themselves to global trends requirement both on quantity and quality of the leaf.”

Mwenefumbo said currently, government is looking at mega farms to expand production of tobacco, which is touted as the country’s main foreign exchange earner, bringing in about 60 percent of forex earnings.

He said recent adverse effects of climate change on the country’s tobacco are a key pointer that farmers should be empowered with affordable small-scale irrigation farming system to boost quantity.

Mwenefumbo asked stakeholders to utilise the conference as a platform to make Malawi tobacco sustainable and competitive on the global market.

Tobacco Commission chief executive officer Joseph Chidanti Malunga said demand for tobacco is so high that it is only right that the country makes use of mega farms to increase productivity.

“Globally, the demand for tobacco consumers is over one billion kilogrammes and our season harvest can only suffice to feed the whole market for one week by estimate; hence, to remain competitive mega farms are one way to achieve output increase,” he said.

Speaking on behalf of stakeholders, JTI Leaf Malawi director of communications and corporate affairs Limbani Kakhome welcomed the idea of stakeholders joining the mega farms but pleaded for constitutional amendments for more effective productivity.

“Mega farms are a good idea but the recent land laws, the current tobacco law and the proposed amendments should encourage investments across the value chain,” he said.

Kakhome said repealing laws that prohibit buyers, growers and transporters from cross-cutting in each of the trade practices would open more room for investment.

During the 2021/2022 season, the country earned $197.1 million (about K204 billion) from 86 million kilogrammes (kg) of tobacco.

Meanwhile, TC said data collected for the 2023 season shows that farmers are ready to produce 170 million kg.