The Sunday Mail
Tichafara Bepe
As Zimbabwe cheers the growing army of tobacco farmers and burgeoning growth in the subsector, a problem is brewing on the farms and plots where production of the golden leaf is taking place.
Woodlands and forests, which supply the wood used to cure the cash crop before marketing, are being depleted.
According to the Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe, tobacco accounts for 15 percent of the country’s annual deforestation rate of 330 000 hectares.
Of this, an estimated 50 000ha of forests are lost annually on account of smallholder tobacco farmers who, unlike large-scale commercial farmers, do not have coal-fueled curing barns.
“This works out to 49 500ha loss of trees and forests through opening up of more land for tobacco farming as well as cutting trees to obtain firewood for tobacco curing.
“The 15 percent estimate could actually be conservative in view of the growing number of farmers that are joining tobacco growing,” said FCZ’s operations manager Mr Stephen Zingwena in a recent interview.
“As far back as 2004, the Forestry Commission noted with concern the high usage rate of indigenous tree firewood by smallholder tobacco farmers especially. They have been increasing in numbers following the advent of the land reform programme.
“As a measure to curb escalating deforestation, the Forestry Commission embarked on a nationwide awareness-raising campaign on the need for tobacco farmers to establish their own woodlots of fast-growing tree species for future use in tobacco curing,” he said.
FCZ’s efforts culminated in the establishment of the Tobacco Wood Energy Programme in 2004.
Eight years later, Government promulgated Statutory Instrument 116 of 2012 to give legal underpinning to the campaign.
One of the key provisions of SI 116 is to make it mandatory for farmers to establish their own source of tobacco-curing energy.
Mr Zingwena said, “As a result of the advent of the Statutory Instrument 116, the tobacco merchant companies have been motivated into forming a company, Sustainable Afforestation Association, that is currently spearheading establishment of firewood plantations at an average rate of 3 200 hectares (making 7 100 000 trees) per annum.”
