Zambezia (1997), XXIV (i).A SMOKY AFFAIR: CHALLENGES FACING SOMESMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS INZIMBABWEDUMISANI MAGADLELA1AbstractTobacco production and marketing requires specific skills and knowledge oftechnical aspects involved in handling the crop from the field, through thecuring process in the barn, to the auction floors. Tobacco production istechnically more demanding than, for example, maize production, but it isfinancially more lucrative. Small-holder burley tobacco producers in someremote areas of Zimbabwe sometimes adopt unconventional methods ofcuring tobacco, but they market it together with their commercial colleagues,who are expected to have higher standards in the selected marketing system.Both types of farmers often complain of the poor prices they receive. Burleyproducers may share the same concerns about marketing, but they havediffering problems when it comes to the production process. Small-holderfarmers have problems relating to size of land-holdings and support systemsavailable to them. Their problems may be linked both to the fact that cashcrop production is not their priority activity and their general need to securefood reserves.INTRODUCTIONTOBACCO IS ONE of the largest foreign currency earners in Zimbabwe. Thereare three types of tobacco grown in Zimbabwe, namely Virginia, burleyand oriental varieties. Virginia tobacco (flue-cured) is the most widelygrown, and is popular among large-scale commercial farmers. It is alsogrown by some small-holder and resettlement farmers on sandy loam soilswhere it does well. Burley is grown by about 200 large-scale commercialfarmers and a larger number of more than 7 000 small-holder farmers (TheHerald, 14 Sept., 1995). This type of tobacco thrives on richer, heaviersoils. Lack of extensive knowledge and facilities about its production andhandling from the field to the barn, and in marketing either by theconsortium or auction system, presents some problems to its producers.Zimbabwe is the third largest exporter of tobacco in the world afterBrazil and the USA. Cole and Cole (1994, 234) say that tobacco cultivationuses only 2,6 per cent of arable land, but is the largest earner of foreign1 The author is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe, and aResearch Fellow, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.1314 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEcurrency in the country. Some commentators say that burley tobaccomakes up only 2-3 per cent of total production of Zimbabwe's tobacco(Roussos, 1988, 70). The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) pays fortraining of farmers, managers, and supervisors at the Tobacco TrainingInstitute. Small-holder farmers are trained at the Trelawney TrainingInstitute also funded by the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, but the centreis largely for flu-cured tobacco growers. After independence in 1980, therewas a concerted government effort to improve the lot of small-holderAfrican farmers. This saw small-holder farmers who grow tobacco startingto attend courses in Banket (a research institute for burley) in increasinglylarge numbers.Most small-holder farmers are in communal areas with poor climaticconditions. More than 70 per cent of Zimbabwe's population lives in theseareas. Tobacco is not the most common crop grown in such areas, butwhere soils and other conditions, such as water availability, allow, somesmall-holder farmers produce tobacco. According to Roussos, thecommunal sector's importance lies in the number of people who manageboth to feed themselves and their families from agriculture, and to providea share of the total marketed output (Roussos, 1988, 75).Cole and Cole (1994), say that burley competes strongly with foodcrops such as maize for land and attention, and that the yield for flue-cured tobacco has increased annually by 40kg per ha over the past 40years. It is also understood to demand less inputs than flu-cured tobacco,but needs more fertiliser (Irrigation Supervisor Run'anga, 2 Feb., 1996,personal communication). According to Cole and Cole (1994, 235f.)organised burley production started around 1960, much later thanproduction of flu-cured tobacco.The quantity produced has risen and fallen with the price. The areaunder production in the large-scale commercial sector has not changedmuch but the combined area of small-scale commercial, co-operative,and communal farmers increased ten-fold in the 1980s (p. 236).At the 1990 average price of Z$6,49 per kg, the total value of increasedyields over one year represents Z$ 15,43 million for the 59 425 hectares oftobacco grown. Burley has become an important cash crop for small-holder, communal-area farmers who produce it. The focus within thetobacco industry as a whole has been on flu-cured tobacco for the obviousreason that it is more profitable than burley, and more large-scalecommercial farmers produce it (Cole and Cole, 1994, 242).This article, prepared at the beginning of 1996 from research carriedout from 1994 to 1996, looks at some problems of burley tobacco productionand marketing among small-holder irrigation farmers in Nyamaropairrigation scheme. Although there is a limited discussion of some generalproblems in the tobacco world, this is not an attempt to address them all.D. MAGADLELA 15In particular the article does not address the problems faced by large-scale commercial farmers in the same business of burley production. Themain objective here is to highlight some of the challenges faced by small-holder burley tobacco producers in an irrigation scheme and how they,with their limited resources, strive to keep up with their large-scalecommercial colleagues who have more facilities to produce good qualitytobacco and to compete for good prices in the international market.THE SHANGWE AND INYOKA TOBACCO INDUSTRYThe tobacco industry in Zimbabwe dates back to the pre-colonial period.The Shangwe people of Gokwe in the Midlands District had a thrivingtobacco industry and exported large quantities of the crop to theirneighbours in the south, the Ndebele. Kosmin gives a detailed descriptionof the growth and decline of the Inyoka tobacco industry. He says thatthey had developed fine skills of handling the crop, such as the way theyhung and air-cured the leaf, placed it on wooden mortars and mixed it withashes from wild aloe, damped it with water and pounded it (1977, 271).The Ndebele are said to have grown some tobacco, and smoked a lotof it in pipes, but Inyoka tobacco was superior and they imported it. TheShangwe were experts in their trade, and some European farmers requestedsome of these experts to come to their farms to assist in training farmworkers in handling or curing tobacco. It seems the Shangwe had noexternal influence on the growth of their tobacco industry other than thedemand for the crop. They had their own internal, on-the-job-training,which was passed on like any other skills as part of their culture. They didnot get much assistance from the colonial authorities. Kosmin says that in1906, van Gielgud, the Native Commissioner for the area, tried to persuadethe British South Africa Company administration to take some farmers fortraining in curing methods, but this was received coldly by the Departmentof Native Agriculture (1977, 276).Lack of government or company support in crucial areas such ascuring and marketing accounted in part for the collapse of the Inyokatobacco industry. Kosmin, again says that 'no aid to Africans in tobaccoproduction in the form of either demonstration advice, fertilisers, newseed, insecticides or marketing' was provided, while in Nyasaland, forexample, small-holder African farmers got assistance and encouragement,and some even got training in fire-curing methods (Kosmin, 1977, 284). Inthe contemporary Zimbabwean situation there is evidence that small-holder tobacco producers have been getting government assistance andsupport from tobacco-related institutions, but some of this assistance hasnot been directed at some of their specific or contextual problems such asproduction and marketing constraints.16 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWESMALL-HOLDER FARMERS AND TOBACCO PRODUCTIONOn 22 June 1995, Zimbabwe's main daily newspaper, The Herald, carried astory in its headlines entitled 'Tobacco industry set to expand'. This,however, was a story about the more successful multi-million Virginiatobacco industry, and not inclusive of the struggling burley crop. Thesame article indicated that some small-scale Virginia tobacco producerswere facing problems with financing their production, and were asking fora fund to be set up to assist them. Three months later, on 14 September1995, the same paper carried a story, not in the headlines this time,entitled 'Low prices shatter plans to increase burley crop'. It indicatedthat the burley industry returned to the auction system in 1994, that untilthen, the crop had been 'sold by private treaty since 1976 to a consortiumcomprising Tabex and Carrington and Machauze'.For burley producers, the 1995 season was characterised by poorprices throughout, and farmers could not get the Z$15 per kg needed tocover production costs. They got an average of less than Z$10 per kg (TheHerald, 14 Sept., 1995). Farmers were discouraged from producing thecrop, and buyers blamed the poor quality of the crop for the poor prices,and claimed that they had difficulties securing orders for a poor qualitycrop abroad. In some burley producing areas, such as Nyamaropa irrigationscheme, a significant number of farmers did not grow tobacco in the nextseason (1996) after the poor prices of 1995.On 15 February, 1996, The Financial Gazette had a story about tobaccoentitled 'Tobacco set for increase', but continued:While strength seemingly returned to the flu-cured tobacco industry,, there does not seem to be any ray of hope under the blanket of gloomcurrently enveloping burley tobacco growers ... there are no indicationsthat burley tobacco prices might improve this year.These newspaper reports only serve to highlight some of the problemsthe industry and particular crop face in the changing environment ofmarketing tobacco. Detailed information on small-holder burley productionamong farmers who grow the crop, and the potential of the crop to makea difference in their lives, has not been gathered.BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN NYAMAROPANyamaropa irrigation scheme covers about 450 hectares. It was constructedand has always been managed by government. The irrigation project islocated in the Nyanga District of Manicaland province in Eastern Zimbabwe.There are more than 423 households with irrigated plots on the scheme,although only a third or less of them grow tobacco each summer. Themanaging agency is the Department of Agricultural Technical and ExtensionD. MAGADLELA 17Services (AGRITEX). The project was constructed between 1956 and 1960and started operating soon after completion. The irrigated area has analtitude of 850m.The average plot size in Nyamaropa irrigation scheme is about threeacres, but there are farmers with six acres and some with only one. This isa result of the historical development of the scheme and the plot allocationsystem. Each 'normal' family was allocated four acres, while widows weregiven two acres. 'Good' farmers were rewarded with an extra two acres tomake a maximum of six acres, but women who lost their husbands lostpart of their land and remained with a standard two acres for widows. Thischanged in practice after independence and widows could retain all theland their husbands had.The common crops grown in Nyamaropa are maize, tobacco, cotton,wheat, beans, tomatoes and other vegetables. Farmers in the irrigationscheme tend to grow more food crops during seasons that follow bad ordry seasons to cater for their food needs first. Tobacco is grown by abouta third of irrigation farmers, and this is on less than 100 ha per season (seeTable 1 below).Table 1HECTARAGE PER CROP, NYAMAROPA IRRIGATION SCHEME,1991-95.Season1990/11991/921992/931993/941994/5Maize(ha)146,2140189,2190177Cotton(ha)194,1181,2141,3175,4193,6Tobacco(ha)47,773,761,062,265,4Beans(ha)119nil*19189,150Wheat(ha)76,92291,9130?Others(ha)28 (tomato)no rec.no rec.no rec.5.5*There were negligible pockets of land with beans this season, but the crop didnot do well.Source: Agritex, 'Nyamaropa Irrigation Scheme' (Unpubl., 1995).The tobacco nursery classroomAround August 1995, I visited a piece of land where farmers had cleareddirt and grass and made beds for their tobacco nurseries. There wereabout five families with three, four or five beds each, patiently waiting forwater to arrive from the dam. The water controller had seen a snake at thecanal gate (7 km away) early in the morning when he went to open it forwater, and did not want to disturb it. He had come back to report theintrusion to his Agritex bosses, so farmers knew that water would be latethat day, but they waited patiently, not wanting to take any chances byleaving and finding others already planting.18 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEAfter about an hour of waiting, chatting and laughing, water was seenapproaching from the corner of one of the tertiary canals from whichfarmers took it. Everybody stood up and scrambled for their containers toget water. They were using family labour to do most of the work. One ofthe elderly farmers said that it is good to have an adult do the work ratherthan sending a child or a worker: sometimes they do not know when tostop irrigating, or they do not irrigate enough especially when the nurseryis covered with grass and they think that water has gone through when infact it is just resting on the grass.It all seemed like a big class or lesson where farmers were teachingeach other how to plant tobacco. They were in rows of beds close to eachother, and kept correcting each other when they saw others doingsomething wrong, or checking with each other that they were doing theright thing. They were planting burley tobacco varieties called Banket Aland Banket 102. Two of the families were with their children, and theynumbered about five people each, all helping each other out, especiallybecause it was during school holidays.I joined and worked with one of my key informants, Mai Hakutangwi, awidow, who was working with her daughter preparing four nursery beds.First, they would water the bed a little, then take cleaner water from thecanal which they 'purified' using madhuku/amaqhiye (head covers, madeout of different types of cloth), then they would take the clean water andput it in a spray bucket. The cloth would catch most of the dirt that theysaid would disturb the seed during germination. Then they would add theseed to the water and spray the mix onto the wet bed.There was no soil cover put on the seed, but some more water isapplied. Then the wet bed was covered with a layer of long-stalk dry grass.Farmers did these things differently: some said that you do not have toput too much grass because there would be no air and light coming in, andothers said that if there is a thick layer of grass all the moisture will beretained and the temperature will be ideal for germination, while a thingrass layer will mean that the bed will dry up fast, and that would be a bigrisk to take especially with the little water that was there. I planted onenursery bed for Mai Hakutangwi, and was told to cover it fast or else itwould not germinate. They helped me do that, and then added some morewater over the grass layer. They kept arguing and teaching each otherabout how much water they needed to put before and after planting, atwhat speed they have to walk while planting so that the seedlings will notbe too crowded or too spread out (one of the extension workers laterexplained this issue to me and said that they have to keep teachingfarmers about 'seed rate' problems because some farmers plant in such away that there are too many seedlings in one small bed, which result inpoor quality seedlings). They all seemed to enjoy it, joking and laughing.D. MAGADLELA 19The long road through the field, the barn and the baling box to the auctionfloors had begun.Agronomic requirements and the land problemAgritex staff in Nyamaropa irrigation scheme believe that producing burleyis a challenging task for many farmers. They said that farmers have torotate the crop well with other crops and not grow it on the same piece ofland for successive seasons. Johnson says that burley should not begrown more than once every two years on heavy soils or once in threeyears on lighter soils, and adds, 'cotton should not immediately precedeburley. Maize will particularly benefit from following burley' (Johnson,n.d.).Nyamaropa farmers have small plots and sometimes rotations aredifficult to maintain, so they end up swapping plots with those farmerswho do not grow tobacco for religious, labour shortage, or other reasons.But this too is not always easy to arrange. Some non-tobacco growers lookfor tobacco growers who need land to grow their tobacco just before theseason starts, and give their plots to the non-tobacco grower to planteither their maize or cotton. After that, when tobacco is removed, thetobacco farmer usually wants to stay on in that field claiming that his orher fertiliser is still in the field, but the plotholder refuses on grounds thatthe deal was for a single crop only. There is a belief among farmers thattobacco producers are cheated in this way, but still need such exchangesto give their plots a chance to recover.Agritex staff said that the normal way of planting tobacco is thatfarmers have to plough, harrow, break clods, make ridges or holes forplanting, treat the land with EDB, a chemical that kills eelworms, wait for21 days, then apply compound C or B fertiliser, depending on the type ofsoil, and then transplant. From then on the crop grows well if watered andfertilised adequately (Extension Supervisor Run'anga, 14 March, 1996,personal communication). From the field to the barn, they have to coverthe ripened leaves with a damp cloth or sack to avoid sun burn. Inside thebarn they have to keep mikangara/imithando (sticks on which they hangthe leaves to cure) either close or separate depending on the weatheroutside. Otherwise tobacco will either dry prematurely or have barn rot(Extension Worker Mtudza, 18 March, 1996, personal communication).The following are quotations from burley tobacco growers inNyamaropa irrigation scheme who have encountered problems in handlingthe crop. The quotations given by case study farmers offer their ownviews of the situation as translated by the author, and illustrate thevarious ways they interact with tobacco production and curing technologyduring the tobacco season.20 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEI grow tobacco because it is one of the most lucrative crops you cangrow in the irrigation scheme here ... if given a choice and enoughmoney to buy fertilisers, I would grow tobacco as my only cash crop . . .cotton needs a lot of labour like tobacco itself, but tobacco gives moremoney from the same amount of land if grown well. But it also needs a lotof knowledge on how to grow it well, cure it the right way, and bale itbefore taking it to Mutare to the [auction] floors . . . you need to knowwhen to transplant the seedlings, and before that, you must treat thebeds well with EDB. In the field you have to transplant it well and it musthave sufficient water, not too much water, tobacco does not like toomuch water. You have to apply the right fertiliser at the right time, butwe have had extension staff saying that we do not apply fertiliser theright way, that for the top we have to dig deep and put it near the roots,but I cannot do all that, 1 do not have the time and the labour to do allthat, so I put the fertiliser on top, in a small hole sometimes, and it willget to the roots, but they still have to teach us well. You have to applyenough fertiliser, and know when to start harvesting, how many leavesyou harvest at a time and which ones. One of the most crucial stages inthe whole process is how you handle the crop inside the barn. Thequality of the barn, how much air gets in, and how much moisture isaround during curing is very important. We have heard the White menwho came here saying that some of our barns are too open and allow toomuch air which dries the crop, some barns are said to be too closed andcongested, which can make the tobacco rot. You can have a good crop inthe field, but if you mess up in the barn, you will not get anything. Wewent to Banket [Research Station] for a course on growing burley acouple of years ago, and 1 learnt most of the tricks there . . . now I knowhow to cure it the right way, but you cannot get it right all the time. WhenI want it to turn brownish, which they seem to like, I spray it with somewarm water, then cover it with some of my old bed covers, blankets orsacks, so that it cooks up nicely. Then I take it out and bale it after tyingit into bundles. When you make a mistake, you will learn the hard way atthe floors when your tobacco is bought at a low price. But 1 do not trustthose people at the floors, they steal our tobacco and go and sell it withhigher prices . . . They move so fast, and in a short space of time theyhave given your tobacco a price and they are off to the next bale ... Ispend months working on my tobacco and someone in one minute tellsme that its worth US$0,30 a kilogramme . . . why do you think a lot ofpeople did not grow tobacco this year? Its not that they do not want to,its not easy, and you have to be careful with it, but what you get may notdepend on how you treated it, you have no control over the selling price... at the end its a gamble, and you only grow it when you think you canwin . . . some years back, in the other system [the consortium systemwhen they sold to one buyer with guaranteed prices for the crop] wewould get good prices and sometimes a bonus long after we sold ourtobacco . . . but now you never know . . . (Mai Hakutangwi, widow andburley tobacco grower in Nyamaropa, personal communication, 20 Feb.1996).D. MAGADLELA 21Mai Hakutangwi here 'acted' as a representative of several otherburley producers in Nyamaropa who faced similar situations regardingtheir crop. This does not, however, remove the diversity and heterogeneityof various farmers involved in tobacco production in the area. She wasaware of constraints at different stages in burley tobacco productionaffecting farmers in different ways, together with the pitfalls and uncertaintyin curing and selling the crop. She worked with her family most of thetime, and hired casual labour at a daily rate of $5Š$10 per person duringharvesting, hanging up the tobacco in the barn and tying it into bundlesand baling it. She had recently bought a baling box for $800 to avoidborrowing one from her colleagues.In 1995, Mai Hakutangwi says she grossed $24 000 from her two acresof burley. She estimated that she spent around $6 000 on inputs, includinglabour. Estimates by producers of income and expenditure are oftenunreliable and the amounts here do not play a crucial part in the analysis.What I am more interested in is the way she interacted with the wholeprocess of producing the crop, and with technological challenges such asthose of curing.Generally, Nyamaropa farmers have their own special or specificproblems. The area is low (with an altitude of 850m), and most of the timeit is hot and dry during the tobacco curing months of March, April andMay. For most of the smaller producers, when tobacco is in the barn thisis one of the most trying stages in the whole process of burley tobaccoproduction. They regard barn handling as the critical time of the gamblethey call tobacco curing, a time when one either creates the opportunityto make money or loses the value of the crop. While curing is a crucial partof the process, if it is done well, there is one more stage that needs subtletechnical know-how on how to deal with possible failures.In Nyamaropa some women specialised in tobacco grading and workedfor, and advised, others at this stage of the process. About grading, Killesays, 'Having worked hard to produce a good crop of burley, manygrowers do not realise its full financial potential due to poor grading andpresentation' (Kille, May, 1987, 1).This goes to show how important this stage of burley production isfor farmers. The gender dimension in this respect needs special mentionin that this is a major cash crop, and the tendency is that men take overcrops that have more commercial value and leave the rest to women todeal with. The expertise that women control in this regard should givethem some advantage in decision-making within their homes.Farmer Matombo had been growing burley tobacco since the mid-sixties. He was known to be one of the good producers of the crop, but hadhad some lean spells in recent years. He was keen to take up farmer-friendly technological methods of curing the crop when all conditions did22 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEnot seem conducive to a good curing atmosphere. I had detailed interviewswith him about his methods.When you are a farmer the one important thing you have to bear in mindis that you are taking a big risk. You may have enough fertilisers, but itmay not rain, and the irrigation scheme's dam may not have enoughwater, so you lose out. But this may be okay in that in the case of maize,you may get a few cobs. When you grow tobacco as your main cash crop,then you must know that your risks of low returns are doubled. This isnot a crop for experiments. I will tell you something ... tobacco is a verygood crop if you know how to handle it, but the trick is that you mustknow exactly what you are doing. When you plant the nursery, you haveto treat the beds with EDB nicely, and you must let it cool off well beforeyou put down the seed, then you have to cover it with grass and thenwater it. You have to keep watering otherwise if it dries up the seed maynot germinate. When tobacco is in the field you have to apply the rightamounts of fertiliser. Then comes the crucial part of harvesting andcuring in the barn ... I will tell you a story that took place here. Therewas a time here when it was very hot and dry, and it became verydifficult to cure tobacco. The Whites in their big farms and barns havethe things they need to produce good quality tobacco, but we have to tryother plans. So I heard from one of them in the first auction sales for theseason that he had put his tobacco in hot water to 'cook' it so that itwould get the right colour which buyers seemed to prefer. He got a goodprice and I saw it, so when 1 came home, I took large bundles of mytobacco, and put hot water in a big dish and then dipped it in. I thenhung it out to dry a bit, and put it in a closed place to retain part of themoisture. Later I baled it and took it to the floors. It got good prices,except that prices were generally low, but it did better than the balesthat had not been 'cooked'... the thing is that you have to try somethingnew to get your way around those guys, sometimes it is not clear whatexactly they want, is it the colour? Is it the weight? What is it? If they tellus we will give it to them if we can? (Matombo, 19 Aug., 1995).Official proclamations of what to avoid in tobacco production,especially at the crucial curing stages, and how farmers' mistakes werepicked, do not often address the farmer's specific needs, the constraintsthey face, and do almost nothing to help understand the various ways inwhich the farmer tries to tackle his or her tobacco-related problems. In aletter to burley producers, a burley tobacco specialist from Banket ResearchStation once pointed out that farmers should follow advice they get fromspecialists and Agritex staff in their areas (Agritex files, 1989).Within their circles, however, farmers have their own experts ontobacco production. During the early stages of the 1996 curing season forexample, I learnt that there were women in Nyamaropa who werespecialising in tobacco grading. One extension worker in the irrigationscheme told of how women had become specialists in the trade, and werebeing contracted by other farmers to grade their tobacco for a priceD. MAGADLELA 23(Extension worker Sithole, 18 March, 1996, personal communication).These are areas of specialisation that the extension department or thetobacco association itself can exploit for the benefit of farmers in the areaby giving such local experts a chance to teach others their skills and helpthe external experts learn something from them. Joint workshop-type oftraining where there is exchange of knowledge can help both parties (localand external tobacco experts) share vital information. Farmers mayespecially learn about what buyers of their crop really look for when theybuy tobacco in the auction floors.Organisational issuesThe organisation of tobacco farmers has been a problematic area inNyamaropa. There is the Air-Cured Tobacco Association (ACTA), whichhas elected representatives, called tobacco councillors, resident in variousdistricts where there is burley production. They are supposed to liaisewith farmers on one side and dealers or merchants on the other, whilerepresenting farmers' interests.In Nyamaropa, farmers say that they do not get to hear much abouttobacco marketing systems because their councillor does not communicatevery well with them on what is taking place in the industry. The Presidentof ACTA, together with the Chief Executive, visited Nyamaropa irrigationscheme after the 1995 season, which turned out to be a disaster for manyfarmers. There had been word that many farmers wanted to stop growingtobacco because of its poor prices. Some smaller tobacco growersexpressed concern about representation at national bodies or associations.This sprung from the fact that they are in the same organisation of burleyproducers with large-scale farmers. The feeling was that they have differentinterests, and may not be fully understood by their bigger colleagueswhose priority in farming is to make money, and not just to survive. Plotsizes were cited as the main distinguishing feature between the two typesof farmers, and the hint was that they were too different to be in the sameorganisation.Marketing bluesThe next section looks at the 'trials and tribulations' of tobacco marketingencountered by small-holder farmers in auction floors, based on two visitsto the Mutare auction floors for the 1995 marketing season. Mutare isalmost 200 km away from their homes. Some farmers could not afford totravel to and fro if their tobacco was not bought on the first day ofauctions, and had to find accommodation somewhere in town. 1 travelledwith one tobacco farmer, whose production, handling and marketing 1 wasfollowing closely. We left Nyamaropa at 5 am, other farmers had alreadygone by buses which left as early as 3 or 4 am. We got to the floors at 8 am.24 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEand found people waiting for the business to start. When it did, there werelow prices for almost all grades, small-holder farmers were complaining.They argued that their representative was not helping them at all; thattheir large-scale commercial colleagues were getting all the help theyneeded and their prices were always high. Some employees at the floorssaid that there was war among buyers concerning who wants to buy howmuch and how. The story was that Tabex wanted to push farmers towardsa monopoly of the market, others wanted the market to be open, somewanted the auction floors closed.Some buyers were said to have links with some bigger farmers to keeptheir prices good. These were just allegations going around the floorsamong small-holders. Some said that large-scale farmers applied too muchfertiliser, and their tobacco had high nicotine content. Small-holders'tobacco was better in that respect because of less chemical inputs. Somesmall-holder farmers were withdrawing their bales claiming that theirtobacco did not get the price it was worth, and they waited for anotherauction day with better prices. The licensed buyers, class A, were asfollows: Tabex, Zimbabwe Leaf Tobaccos, Stancom, Dibrill Brothers (jointlywith Mashonaland Tobacco Company), and Export. Then there were whatwere called Pin Hookers Š merchants who bought tobacco, stock up, andthen resold to larger buyers when prices were good. Some farmers weresaying that Tabex was 'killing' auction prices on purpose so that it wouldforce the industry to revert to the old consortium system that they usedsome years back, when it had a lot of control over producer prices. At theclose of business on 26 June, the maximum price at which tobacco hadbeen bought was US$2, 70 per kg, and the minimum was US$0, 05 per kg.Most of the tobacco was bought before mid-day. Some of thesmallholder farmers from Nyamaropa did not have anywhere to sleepsince they had no relatives in town. There were times when there weremix-ups in selling days and they had to spend longer periods sleepingeither at relatives' or friends' places around town, or in the open sheds atthe bus terminus.To add to the suffering, tobacco sales take place in winter in Zimbabwe,and farmers have to withstand the cold from the bus stations to theauction floors and then to the bus terminus for the night bungled uptogether, especially women farmers, to share the warmth. Normally, afterselling they can get their cheques in the afternoon of the selling day,between 1 and 3 pm. However, it is still not easy for them to make banktransactions and then catch the bus home in a few hours. Some of themprefer to take the bus home instead, and give their cheques to localbusinessmen with whom they make special arrangements about payments.After mid-day at the auction floors, only Black small-holder farmerscan be seen loitering around the auction floors, mainly at the receptionD. MAGADLELA 25area. Here there is a restaurant from where they hardly buy any foodbecause they say it is too expensive. Instead, they go to a kiosk outside theauction floors yard for refreshments, waiting for their cheques to beprocessed. When the time finally comes, names are called out, the farmergoes and signs for the cheque (they can pick up a relative's or a friend'scheque that way too) and leaves. Some of them smile at the figures ontheir cheques, others grimace, and almost all of them are curious to knowwhat the next farmer got. This becomes big news at home back in theirrigation scheme where some figures are purposely inflated.In Nyamaropa itself, the rest of the 1995 marketing season wascharacterised by complaints from farmers some of whom said that theywere not going to grow tobacco during the next season, but they wouldwait and watch how others perform. The ACTA leaders came to meetNyamaropa farmers after the end of the marketing season to discuss theircommon problems as farmers. The following section is an extract from themeeting they held with growers in Nyamaropa.Before the meeting I met the tobacco councillor. He told me that theZimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) is based in Harare and is the toporganisation for all tobacco growers, including growers of both burleyand Virginia. Then there is the Flue-Cured Tobacco Association (FCTA)and ACTA. He went on to point out a few things about their industry tome:'Auctions are mainly for burley and Virginia. The marketing systemhas been the sore spot for most tobacco growers; in 1980 there was aconsortium system dominated by one buyer, Tabex. There were problemswith time, the buyer never bought more than 2 000 bales a day. Auctionsare faster, but there are problems with buyers too. Some buyers knoweach other and seem to set particular prices for the day, and there is notenough competition among them, with Tabex still dominating. The BurleyMarketing Association (BMA) is the marketing agency for ACTA.'He went on to say, 'Small producers are not in a good position, theyhave small pieces of land, small production levels, less knowledge of thecrop as seen by their poor grading skills. To make matters worse, buyersare said to link up and discuss how to get the best deals from farmerswho do not seem to be that united. Some foreign buyers are rumoured tohave been refused entry to buy tobacco (but this could not be confirmed),with the excuse that there was very little tobacco this year. Councillorsdeal with all aspects of tobacco production and marketing, recruitmentof labour, training, and payment, etc. They basically lead districts. I amin district 9, and I have been here as a councillor for 14 years. I have alsoworked in the same capacity in Malawi, where small-holder farmersproduce a lot of high quality tobacco. The structure of our organisationis such that at the bottom there is the grower, then the tobacco committeewhich organises farmers on grievances, on transport, etc. At this levelAgritex assists farmers in production, treatment and handling of thecrop. We work with Agritex although they think that we sideline26 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEthem . . . There are about 300 burley tobacco growers in Nyamaropairrigation and dryland area' (Basira, tobacco councillor, Nyamaropaarea, 19 Sept., 1995, personal communication).The two tobacco executives had come to talk to farmers about howthe previous season had gone, how the crop was bought and problemsrelated to production and marketing. The first to speak was the President,he said:Thank you for coming to the meeting. Why are there so few women in themeeting? They are the farmers and they're the best... This year we hada poor season. Many people are being blamed for many things. Lastseason the main problem was poor rains, we had rains to plant the cropbut no humidity to cure it. Due to the poor weather we had a poor crop.We must remember that an early crop is better ... We get our moneybetter than the way we get it for other crops, and that is as soon as wesell. If everything is good, with a good crop and good grading, you getgood money. Last season prices were low as a result of a poor crop froma poor rainfall season. All you experienced farmers will agree with methat our last crop was bad. Some farmers now want us to go back to theold consortium system. We changed from that system because onebuyer could do what he wanted with prices. Only in 1991 did we get goodprices from that buyer. Since then rains have been poor, leading to poorprices, so we cannot blame the marketing system because of the weather.If we have a good rain season and a good crop, prices are going to bebetter. We have to keep the present auction system and see how itperforms. Its an expensive system, but we are assisted by the TobaccoTrade Association. They are keen to get good tobacco to sell abroad, sothey are assisting us to try and improve. We need you to assist usthrough your local representatives and tell us what you would like us todo. Your views will be taken into consideration. There are people growingseedlings to help supply those who have no water to prepare nurseries,and some of them are even offering transport. They will help you helpyourselves, so you can talk to your representatives about it. Next monthon the 20th of August we are having a congress in Harare where we willtalk about the marketing system, some farmers want to go back to theconsortium system, so we want you to discuss it and select two peopleto represent you at the congress, to be three with your councillor. Theywill be taken care of, but anyone who wants to come on their ownfunding can certainly do so. They will be free to listen, discuss and talkabout tobacco business, but they will not be allowed to vote. Eachdistrict will be allowed to have private discussions. It is unfortunate thatwe cannot accommodate all of you in the congress. We understand thatthis area has some internal problems, so we are here to discuss themwith you, you live here and experience the problems. Thank you forlistening to me.Farmers did not immediately respond to what he said. There was anair of dejection among farmers. They had expected to hear some goodD. MAGADLELA 27news such as promises of better prices for the following marketing season.The Irrigation Extension Officer then stood up and urged farmers to selecttheir representatives for the congress. Again there were moments ofuncomfortable silence with grumbling among the men. Then the ChiefExecutive, apparently in an attempt to break the silence, said, 'I know thatyou say that you do not get enough representation in the congress and inother meetings in town.' He explained the costs of having a congress andthe fact that they cannot afford to have many people.Afterwards there was a heated exchange between farmers and thepresident on several issues. First, there was the issue of representation.One farmer questioned the lack of representation of farmers' interestsduring the selling of their crop. The president's response was that farmersshould liaise more with their elected representatives themselves, and notexpect anyone to do it for them. He added, however, that he was going tolook into the issue.Second, there was the issue of speed during tobacco auctioning. Oneof the prominent tobacco farmers in Nyamaropa, Dziwira, asked whybuyers seemed to rush through a line of bales without much deliberationof what a bale might cost. The president said that they are even fasterwhere bales are the same quality, and are slower where there is morevariety. There were more questions from farmers about poor prices forseemingly good quality tobacco.Third, farmer Matombo asked why one particular buyer, Tabex, wasdominating burley tobacco buying, and why producers could not boycotthim if he tried to set low prices. The president saidThat's a good point, many farmers feel that way, and say he has takenadvantage of us. But again when small buyers do not buy our crop, he isthere to take it. This year one company bought one third of the crop,Tabex bought half of all our crop. In 1992/3 Tabex bought everything. In1993/4 it bought 75 per cent of it, and this year 50 per cent, showing agradual drop and a bit more competition. Hopefully, with a good seasonand a good crop this coming season, we can get good prices.After this there were nominations for representatives for a congressto discuss marketing problems for burley producers. Two men wereselected for the task.The proceedings in the congress were all in English, and althoughsmall-holder farmer's representatives could follow the discussions, theydid not take any active part. Those who did, did not sound comfortablewith it, and were laughed at by other participants. What became clear wasthat some of the problems affecting burley tobacco producers are peculiarto each group of farmers. That is, there are problems that affect small-holder producers, such as land size and crop rotations, barn constructionand curing methods, which do not necessarily affect large-scale producers.28 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEat least not the same way. Small-holder tobacco producers have smallerunits of production and their scale of operation is therefore restricted bythe amount of production. When they see what their large-scale colleaguesreceive from their tobacco sales, they feel that it is not fair. They knowthat they have smaller pieces of land, and argue that at least the quality ofthe crop should give them higher prices than they normally get frombuyers.The congress voted for the continuation of the auction system, andsome farmers thought that they were not going to get anything from it thistime. But still they prepared their land for the next crop.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSThe fact that most of the tobacco grown in Zimbabwe is grown by large-scale commercial farmers does not necessarily reduce the importance ofsmall-holder tobacco production among communal area farmers. The roleplayed by small-holder farmers in keeping the fluttering burley industryalive is not clearly discernible for want of detailed data not only on therole tobacco plays in their lives, but also on how they perceive technologyfor tobacco production. This also involves how they handle the crop intheir fields, in barns and in the auction floors where they assume the mostpassive roles in the whole process.The Shangwe people and their Inyoka tobacco industry, are an exampleof a people with their own type of indigenous crop processing technology.They had developed a lucrative business and could have grown biggerhad they adapted their technologies to the new demands of a growingurban market and new tastes for different varieties of processed tobacco.They might have developed into a modern tobacco growing region hadthey been accorded the necessary institutional and infrastructuralconditions given to large-scale farmers who went into tobacco productionafter them.Their tobacco was in demand, and the way they secured their marketsshowed some dynamism before the demise of the industry. Admittedly,their technologies, especially in curing the crop, were not developed bymodern western standards, and were overtaken by new tastes. However,it must be emphasised that there are lessons to be learnt from the Shangwetobacco producers. One gets the impression from Kosmin (1977) that theywere not assisted in any fundamental way. The denigrating attitude totheir whole industry can be seen as a deliberate strategy to bring theindustry to its knees, and it worked. Today it seems as if they hardly hadanything to offer in tobacco production, curing and marketing.Burley tobacco production in Zimbabwe today plays second fiddle toVirginia tobacco, not just because the latter is grown largely by commercialD. MAGADLELA 29farmers but because it is more lucrative to produce than the former.Small-holder farmers who are burley producers have been hit hard bypoor prices and some have decided to abandon the crop for a while,taking stock of their losses. Their main problem, as identified by Agritexstaff and tobacco farmer's representatives, is in poor quality tobacco.Mai Hakutangwi's interaction with tobacco technology in the way sheperceived the crop's production shows that she was aware of the pitfallsthat waited for her in the process, and saw tobacco production as achallenge and a gamble. Her use of water to spray and then cover the crophelped her get the expected quality of the leaf which could sell better. LikeMatombo who 'cooked' his tobacco in hot water, she aimed at meetingstandards which were set by international buyers of the crop.Tobacco marketing had been an uncertain part of the industry forsome time. Nyamaropa farmers believed that they were getting a raw dealfrom tobacco merchants. The reason why they felt robbed was that theydid not understand why buyers rushed through their bales and seeminglyrandomly gave unjustifiable prices to their tobacco in a flash. Theirmarketing blues were compounded by lack of accommodation in townsand the process of payment which had another problem of making themspend about two nights in the streets of Mutare, waiting for their chequesto be cashed so that they could buy some groceries and farming inputsbefore going back home. It could take several months before farmers gottheir full earnings from crops such as cotton, although they did receivepart of the payment when they sold the crop.On a related note, one can see that the technology of tobaccoproduction, while easy to grasp by some farmers, requires a lot of learning.It is a scientific process in which farmers themselves are involved fromthe day they plant the nursery to the auction floors. There is thetechnological facet which has a physical face to it, involving, for example,barn construction, curing methods, and grading. Then there is the cognitiveside of technological knowledge which some women in the irrigationscheme seem to have captured. Gendered relations surrounding the curingand grading of tobacco have a significant bearing on several technologicalaspects of the process of handling tobacco. For example, the larger part ofbarn construction is a male preserve because it involves cutting huge logsand climbing on top of the barn to thatch it, and women are traditionallynot allowed to climb on trees, huts and other high structures. But whouses the barn most when it is complete? It is the women who have thetechnical knowledge of curing tobacco. This does not, however, mean thatmen cannot cure tobacco: some of them are quite good at it too. Probablyas a result of the monotony involved in the process, most men were not asactive as their women counterparts when it came to the curing stage.Those who were active were the well-known producers who had a30 SMALL-HOLDER BURLEY TOBACCO PRODUCERS IN ZIMBABWEreputation to keep. Most men delegated that task to women who wereknown locally to be better at it than men. However, there were differencesbetween households in the allocation of tasks.On the whole, tobacco production as a farmer's full-time activity is ascientific endeavour with a skewed bias towards the need to understandits sometimes complex technological requirements. A good tobacco cropin the field can turn out to be nothing in the auction floors if it is not curedthe right way, and a well-cured but mixed crop that is poorly graded canearn a farmer far less than the whole crop is worth. Small-holder farmershave various technical, labour and social problems in their process oftobacco production. They have adapted new ways, sometimesunconventional or radical, to deal with the need to produce a good cropthat meets the high standards of international buyers. Those who 'cook'their tobacco are no different from those who just spray water on it to turnit to the required shade of colour and texture.Basically, it is a matter of trying to achieve a certain acceptable levelof curing the crop. Farmers have different resources available to them inthe production process, and those who have depth of one or the other ofdifferent technical skills will use it to their advantage when the needarises. They all seem to know that tobacco production is an inherentlytechnical process, but are willing to play the game as knowledgeable andcapable beings able to find their own niche within the myriad of otherpossibilities of how to handle tobacco in the field, the barn, into the baleand to the floors.ReferencesCOLE, D. AND COLE, J. S. (1994) 'Tobacco research and development', inRukuni, M. and Eicher, C. K. (eds.) Zimbabwe's Agricultural Revolution(Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications).JOHNSON, P. H. S. (n.d.) 'Notes on Crop Rotations in Zimbabwe' (Agritex,Chief Agricultural Specialist, Crop Production Branch).KILLE, T. (May, 1987) 'Burley grading', in Tobacco News and Information(Harare, Tobacco Research Board and Agritex).KOSMIN, B. (1977) 'The Inyoka tobacco industry of the Shangwe people:The displacement of a pre-colonial economy in Southern Rhodesia,1893-1938', in Palmer, R. and Parsons, N. (eds.) The Roots of RuralPoverty in Central and Southern Africa (Berkeley, UCP).MAGADLELA, D. (1995) 'Imposed Hardships? Some Social Impacts of SAPson Small-holder Irrigation Farmers' Livelihoods in Communal Areas ofZimbabwe' (Paper presented at the 18th Southern African UniversitiesSocial Science Conference held in Mbabane, Swaziland, 7-11 Dec,1995).