One of Zambia’s top five tobacco buyers, Pemba Leaf Tobacco Company – PLTC said that tobacco is a high return crop but stressed challenges faced in the tobacco industry which include lack of a market for small-scale tobacco farmers in the country.
The Company which operates from Zambia’s Eastern Province in Chipata was formed in 2008 with the main aim of buying tobacco from sponsored and self-sponsored farmers who then sell the commodity on the regional and international market.
Pemba Leaf Agronomy Shepard Banda told the Zambian Business Times – ZBT in an exclusive interview that currently the company is has an out-grower scheme catering for over 300 small-scale tobacco farmers who have been provided with farming in puts and in return sell their tobacco to Pemba leaf.
He added that apart from buying tobacco from sponsored/scheme farmers, the company has also been buying from self- sponsored farmers disclosing that so far, the company has for the 2019 season bought over 800 tonnes of tobacco from both self-sponsored and sponsored farmers in Eastern province.
Banda further revealed to ZBT that this year’s projection in tobacco production is likely to reach 1,000 000 tonnes compared to 800 tonnes attained during the 2018/2019 farming season stating that the market has been favorable and farmers have not had many difficulties in growing the crop.
“The way tobacco is grown is different, when we have too much rain the crop doesn’t grow well but again when it’s completely dry production automatically goes down, however this kind of crop only grows well when there is just enough rain. However, this year’s projection in production is likely to go up because the season has been favorable and we have been buying about 600 tonnes about above compared to the 300 tonnes that we were getting last year,” he said.
Banda further stated that despite the progress recorded in the industry, the tobacco market has been under pressure as tobacco has been declared a harmful substance by the World Health Organization – WHO, which has driven away some customers and key stakeholders from supporting the industry hence resulting in further challenges to getting on the world market.
He confirmed that response and support from farmers has been overwhelming and has since advised small-scale tobacco farmers to increase their production saying the market and the company is ready to support their Agro-businesses.
