Heavy rains affect Zimbabwe tobacco crop

Heavy rains pounding Zimbabwe have caused leaching and water logging of tobacco crop, posing a substantial threat to the output of the country's top export earner, the industry regulator said Tuesday.

Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) corporate communications manager Isheunesu Moyo told the state run news agency New Ziana that preliminary findings from the crop assessment currently underway showed that rain-fed tobacco had been affected by the incessant rains.

"We are urging farmers to re-apply fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate that would have been washed away by the rains," Moyo is quoted as saying.

"Crop assessment is still going on so the volume of affected tobacco is yet to be ascertained," he added.

Zimbabwe has been receiving incessant rains since beginning of the year that have caused flooding in some parts of the country.

In its weekly tobacco bulletin, the TIMB said leaching and water logging had also resulted in false ripening of tobacco.

The rains had also brought humid conditions which were prolonging curing periods for tobacco, the TIMB said, adding there were few cases where tobacco was hit by hailstorms in Mashonaland West Province.

As at January 25th, at least 107,035 hectares of land had been put under tobacco while at least 81,548 farmers registered to grow tobacco during this cropping season, a 16 percent jump from last year's 70,462 growers.

Since the country started using multiple foreign currencies in 2009, the tobacco industry has been one of the fastest to recover from the economic meltdown of the past decade due to favorable prices and organized marketing.

This has resulted in many farmers abandoning other cash crops such as cotton for tobacco due to its viability.

Tobacco is Zimbabwe's largest foreign currency earner, with the country having raked in 537 million U.S. dollars from 183 million kg of the golden leaf in 2016. Endit