‘It takes 10kg of wood to dry 1kg of tobacco’

When John Vidal from The Guardian visited Kasungu in July 2015, this is how he described what he saw: ‘For cigarette smokers and tobacco growers, the sight—and sweet smell—of the Chinkhoma auction house near Kasungu in central Malawi is heaven.

“Tens of thousands of metre-cubed bales of golden leaf, each with enough tobacco to make more than 50 000 cigarettes, cover the floor of a warehouse the size of three football fields’

Vidal went on to explain how ‘the sweet smell, and sight of cured tobacc—central to the economy, is being produced at a ‘high price’.

“The industry contributes greatly to the destruction of forests, with millions of trees required for the drying barns involved in air—and heat—curing. The cost also includes floods, changed rainfall patterns, and a reduction in food growing,” he wrote.

Vidal was right. Tobacco has for the past 100 years taken away our forests at an alarming rate. Apart from heavy use of trees in curing virginia tobacco (kampopi), smaller trees have to be cut as mikangala for drying burley leaves.

Malawi also devotes more than 5 percent of its farming land to the crop– the highest percentage globally. The impact has been deforestation rate that is the fourth fastest in the world.

When we factor in wanton cutting down of trees for fuel and charcoal, there is very little room for trees to survive in this country.

Statistics show that in 1990, more than 47 percent of the country was tree-covered, but by 2010 16.9 percent had been lost. It is tragic.

Which is why, we on the streets want to agree with what JTI managing director Fries Vanneste said this week that trees being a major resource in tobacco production; there is need for constant replacement to ensure availability every year.

For many years, local industry players have looked the other way when it comes to reforestation programmes.

But time has come for the players to act responsibly by pumping millions of kwachas wasted on luxury vehicles into conservation projects nationwide.

It’s heartwarming to hear Vanneste say that the company plans to plant three million trees nationwide to support farmers and government’s efforts to increase vegetative cover.

The question is what are the other industry players doing about forests?

Sometime ago, a leading manufacturer of cigarette brands and one of the largest buyers of Malawian tobacco, said it takes 10 kilogramme (kg) of wood to dry 1kg of tobacco. How much per kilogramme of tobacco is invested back into our forests?

***

The Emperor’s new clothes

What happened at Lunzu Community Ground in Blantyre can be summed up by Hans Christian Anderson’s popular short story, The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Last Sunday, three ex-cabinet ministers and a cleric joined the ruling DPP.

The four are ex-Cabinet ministers—Ken Lipenga, Henry Phoya, Brown James Mpinganjira, popularly known as BJ, and the cleric the Reverend Daniel Gunya.

We on the streets expect the governing party to attract people of substance into its fold. The ‘big catch’ on Sunday left many laughing our lungs out because the four are not just spent force, but have very little to offer to a party fighting to shrug off a nepotism tag.

When APM promised to rebuild and rebrand the party from the grassroots, we on the streets expected more. Is this how  DPP will rebuild? Are these new clothes? n