Tama stunned by poor start to tobacco season

The Tobacco Association of Malawi (Tama) says it is surprised at how poorly tobacco sales have started this season, saying such a trend – if sustained, could threaten future production of the crop.

The market has within the first week been marred by low prices and high rejection rate which continue to compromise the outlook of the season.

Tama chief executive officer, Graham Kunimba, said there are fears that the grower may not reap the most if the trends persist.

He said the high rejection rate, which is coupled with low prices on offer, has the capacity to frustrate the growers’ effort.

“The start is not as what we expected. That is very unfortunate, we are faced with a lot of challenges as farmers but as it is, it is a very big problem for the farmers. In a nutshell, the start has not been favorable,” said Kunimba.

He said the excuse that the trend is being influenced by heavy presence of tobacco from the middlemen does not hold water, blaming the problem on disparities in supply and demand for the commodity.

“Most of the tobacco brought to the market belongs to genuine farmers. The buyers have got a requirement and it baffles us that from the very beginning, they are rejecting the crop that has been brought forward and that is even before they start accumulating the purchases,” he said

“They know what they are looking for, why can’t they just buy and when they hit the mark, we would sit on a round table to see how to sale off the excess tobacco,” pleaded Kunimba.

Tobacco sales at the Limbe auction floors for instance started on a low note on Monday this week when 52 percent of the leaf brought to the floors was rejected, with the rest attracting low prices.

This followed another poor start at the Lilongwe and Chinkhoma auction floors last week where the no-sale rate hovered around 32 percent and 58 percent, respectively, on the opening day.

Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) chief executive officer, Albert Changaya, is however , optimistic that in the coming few weeks, high quality leaf would start flowing into the market and stabilise the market.

Demand for the country’s tobacco this year dropped by 12 percent to 158 million kilogrammes as per international trade requirements, from 179.1 million kilogrammes buyers overbought last year.