With the Tobacco Commission (TC) yet to announce the opening of the 2024-2025 tobacco marketing season, farmers are praying for better prices with social and climatic shocks of the growing season increasing the cost of production.
Tobacco markets at Mzuzu, Chinkhoma in Kasungu, Kanengo in Lilongwe and Limbe in Blantyre normally open at the end of March or early April. Meanwhile, TC on Saturday indicated on its Facebook page that the markets will open soon.
“Many farmers are asking when the markets will open this year. We will announce the dates soon,” the commission declared.
Last week, the commission conducted consultations with farmers and other stakeholders in the industry in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.
TC spokesperson Telephorus Chigwenembe on Friday needed more time to consult on the outcome of the discussions.
Malawi is expected to harvest 174 million kilogrammes of the leaf, 22 percent below the estimated 213 million kilogrammes demand.
According to the commission, production has declined by 31 percent due to delayed rains and dry spells.
But in random interviews with growers of the green gold, Malawi’s main economic mainstay, the farmers said with rising costs of fertiliser, seed, chemicals, labour and transportation and the impact of weather shocks, among other factors, they hope for better prices that go beyond the highest bidding price at the auction floors last year, $3 or about K5 250 per kg.
Janet Nyalapa is a 74-year-old widow, a former typist at Air Malawi but now a farmer in Thondwe extension planning area in Zomba, said the prices on the market will determine her prospects of cultivating the crop, saying it has been a hard year to produce burley tobacco.
“Food shortages hit us hard during the season. Labourers were charging exorbitantly to meet their food needs. The price of fertiliser has been so high that I bought fewer bags than necessary.
“The weather was so bad since we were hit by a dry spell. This made me incur more costs to water my crop. Then, we were hit by Cyclone Jude, which resulted in damage to the tobacco that was in the shed,” she said in an interview on Friday.
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Nyalapa went into tobacco farming a year before her husband’s death in 2002. Initially, 11 others (two women) were cultivating the crop in the area but now she is the only woman doing so, with three other men.
“Since 2001, I have been growing tobacco and the proceeds keep me elevated financially and it has helped me sustain my life, apart from the cattle I raise, the maize, soya and sweet potatoes I grow.
“Production has gone too high and I only hope for better prices when the markets open. This year’s market will determine whether or not I will proceed,” she said.
During the 2022-2023 growing season, the price of fertilisers used in tobacco production CAN, D-Compound and Super D was less than K50 000, but now the prices are hovering around K135 000 and K175 000 per 50 kilogramme bag.
This rise in cost of implements has as well hit 50-year-old Edson Banda and chairperson of the Wathu Burley Club, Akiliya Mkwinda of group village head Mpili in T/A Nkoola’s area in Machinga. The two say a S$3 minimum price per kg will make them smile.
“Due to the dry spell when we were about to transplant, our crop withered. We had to transplant three times. Normally, I harvest 18 bales, but this year, I will only have nine.
“So to make up for these costs, which were even made higher with fuel shortages and increasing prices of chemicals and seed, we look forward to good prices,” said Banda.
Mkwinda said the benchmark would work well for the common flue-cured and burley tobacco.
“With the fuel shortages, the cost for us to travel to Ntaja Trading Centre, 20-kilometres away, to get seeds and chemicals was higher, especially with the fuel shortages at the time. Prices for important implements have doubled,” he said.
The assertions are corroborated by other farmers we talked to in Mangochi, Salima and Mchinji.
Molesi Lemon of Mchinji said he transplanted three times due to the dry spell, saying: “I was, however, fortunate because I am on contract and I was able to buy fertiliser and seeds on loan. My colleagues had to get low grade seeds and lower quantities of fertiliser.”
Mangochi farmer Allan Sam M’madi of Katema Village in T/A Mponda’s area said with the dry spells, farmers were forced to dry plant and irrigate their crop.
He added: “That led to isolated crops standing and differences in crop growth. The cost of production has been so high and we expect the price to be at least $4 per kg [K7 000].”
Farmers Union Malawi (FUM) president Mannes Nkhata said the farmers’ demands are justified.
She observed that tobacco farmers expect increased price levels so that they should compensate with the prevailing elevated cost of production.
According to her, the FUM analysis indicates that the cost of production for tobacco has increased by more than 60 percent in the past two years.
Said Nkhata: “Unfortunately some of them ran out of seedlings and resorted to either transplanting low productive local varieties and some even just planted other crops.
“Further, the high cost of fertilisers has compelled most tobacco farmers to apply fertiliser at rates that are below the recommended levels which will significantly reduce the expected tobacco output for this year.”
She added that despite various diversification efforts by the government, tobacco still remains the lifeline of Malawi’s economy; hence, tobacco farmers have to be offered prices that will incentivise their production.
Concurring with Nkhata, agriculture expert Tamani Nkhono Mvula acknowledged the relevance of tobacco to the Malawi economy, saying the crop’s production costs have increased this season due to economic and weather shocks.
With over 50 000 registered farmers, tobacco, which contributes about 15 percent of Malawi’s gross domestic products, is the largest forex earner and generates about 20 percent of the country’s national tax revenue.
