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Tobacco or Food : the Zimbabwe Equation

by Ronald Watts
A major effort to defend Ito policy of expanding tobacco production has been launched by the Britain-based Internationa) Tobacco Growers Association (fTGA). It is of great Interest in Zimbabwe where tobacco is the most Important agricultural export.
In a year of acute drought the Tobacco Marketing Board has just announced that sales on the tobacco floors, which started on March 31, have lopped the one billion Zlm babwe dollar mark
With almost dally drought-
Induced < tosures of factories — from sugar to cotton spinners — tobacco Is about the only bright spot on the commercial scene in Zimbabwe.
But the industry is under attack from the medical profession. ranging from the World Health Organization down to the Minister of Health. Welsh-born Dr Timothy Stamps, and the Zimbabwe Medical Association (Z1MA).
In a statement for No Smoking Day recently. Z1MA drew attention to the health risks of smoking. It anticipates a "rapid increase In mortality from smoking-related disease" in countries like Zimbabwe. It urges that "research be undertaken on alternatives to tobacco or alternative uses, so that Id the event of a slump in world demand, farmers will still have profitable export crops."
At present there seems little prospect of a slump tn demand for tobacco. In fact the ITGA. in their glossy reports, makes much of the 1989 UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's projection that demand will "increase at an average rat of some two per cent through lo the year 2000."
When the ITGA asked Oxford University economists to prepare a report on alternatives to Tobacco farming the result was a foregone conclusion. While they admit there are "a range of possibilities in the substitution scenario." their final conclusion is that "rapid and widespread substitution is neither possible nor desirable from an economic or social standpoint."
The economists found that Zimbabwe has in fact discovered some viable alternatives to tobacco. These arc in the rapidly expanding horticultural sector which recently announced SZ200, million worth of exports tn the post season despite the drought
Projected gross margins for roses come to SZ67.067 per hectare against $Z 17.308 for flue-cured tobacco. Zimbabwe, they report, is the sixth largest exporter of roses In the world, but expansion Is limited by air freight capacity.
In this time of drought, people are asking how tobacco fits in with food production. Last year Stamps crilicised to-
bacco farmers for moving out of maize growing. This year outgoing Tobacco Association President Michael Taggart warned the annual general meeting that members must grow more food crops.
Obviously the billion dollar tobacco exports will help the government pay for Its massive kxkI import bill. But how much
of that bill is due to many to-badco growers cutting their maize hectaragc?
The maize-tobacco equation is a difficult one to make because in a year of drought the effect on tobacco is largely delayed.
This is because most flue-cured tobacco is planted in seedbeds in winter and that is where most of the irrigation takes place.
It will be interesting to see how next year's crop is affected by the shortage of water from the current seedbeds just being planted.
Maize in Zimbabwe is almost exclusively rain-fed and so, is most vulnerable to drought, particularly at certain points in its growth. Where questions need to be asked is in the area of pricing. Some 98 per cent of to bacco la sold on the world market and so benefits inervd ibly from devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar Maize has had a price fixed by government at very clow to a breakeven point and has lost out heavily because of rising input costs.
The grower s price is currently $550 per tonne while the landed cost of Imported maize is at least three times this amount. What economists have yet to answer is how tobacco would fare If It had to face competition with maize at world market prices.
While Zimbabwe s large
from unprofitable maize Into tobacco, the small-scale farmers cannot afford to do the
This Is because growing maize requires little capital beyond an ox-drawn plough Flue-cured tobacco ts particularly capital intensive because of all the processing that takes place on the form.
Capital Is one of the areas where tobacco farmers are vulnerable because so much of it has to come from outside Zimbabwe. Last year Maurice Rooney. Chief Executive of the Tobacco Industry Council, branded as 'nco-cokmiailsm' Britain's decision to stop aiding the tobacco sector in developing countries.
Such a ban is extremely dlf-fk ult to apply since few, If any, farmers grow only tobacco and arc nd Vised lo grow the crop In rotation with grass and other
It Is particularly difficult to determine why Zimbabwe's tobacco moguls are so sensitive to the home-based health lobi-r
Rooney recently referred to Stamps suggestion that consumption at home should be curtailed us the "The Morality of Medliiin" — referring to the Colombian drug capital — and implied that It was Immoral to export tobacco while warning Zimbabweans of the dangers to their health.
Apparently Zimbabwean smokers are expected to die quietly fn their thousands, blissfully unaware of the risks of smoking They arc. In other worlds, to be sacrificed on the , altar of "a free economy." "Markel forces" and Economic Structural Adjustment Programme.
The main arguments between the tobacco Industry and the medical profession fn Zimbabwe are not about the growing of tobacco. They are about advertising making public places "no smoking zones" and the teaching in schools of the risks of smoking.
Apparently the Industry feels that because it has produced one billion dollars worth of exports it should have a free run for its money with no restrictions placed on It at all.
In spite of the health lobby, tobacco, as a future crop for Zimbabwe and the 94 other countries that grow what King James I called the “loathsome" weed, looks promising.
The new president of the Tobacco Association says : “We do not believe the arguments will have much impact in stopping people from smoking The price of cigarettes is the only factor which we know has an impact."
This would seem a promising avenue for the anti-smoking lobby to follow. According to ITGA, total world government revenue from tobacco taxation in one year recently amounted to $100 billion. Why, the anti-smokers might well ask. not double the figure and make it $200 billion? It sounds like the answer to the prayers of every minister of finance in the world.
— Gemini News