Tobacco.org

Side-Marketing Threatens Contract Farming's Future 

THE future of the contract farming system in the tobacco industry is under threat from farmers who are breaching their contracts through side-marketing, with the situation likely to impact negatively on the next season.

Side-marketing is when a farmer decides to sell their produce outside the contractual agreement after being supplied with inputs to grow the crop.

According to statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, 90 percent of the crop grown last year was under contract farming, but it was now being sold through the auction system.

TIMB had estimated that 5 million kilogrammes of tobacco would go under the hammer but that has been surpassed, confirming suspicion that farmers were side-marketing their crop.

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