Jump to full article: VOANews.com (Voice of America), 2009-07-09
Author: Peta Thornycroft
Intro: Zimbabwe's annual tobacco auctions this year were notable for record prices and the second smallest crop in more than 50 years. Thousands of new small-scale tobacco farmers failed to grow tobacco this season because neither commercial banks nor the government had money to lend for inputs such as fertilizer.
Zimbabwe's 2009 tobacco crop will earn about $160 million this selling season. The average price was about $3.60 a kilogram. Most tobacco will be exported to Europe with China now also an important buyer.
About 50 million kilograms was produced, more than 80 percent of that grown by the few remaining white farmers on the tiny portions of land left untouched by President Robert Mugabe's ongoing seizures of white-owned land.
Until land invasions began in 2000, large-scale white tobacco growers and growing numbers of black farmers produced more than 220 million kilograms of tobacco each year. This was the bedrock of Zimbabwe's economy and the country's largest foreign currency earner.
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