Business Times (Dar es Salaam)
Bakari Machumu
1 August 2003
LOCAL researchers should collaborate with their foreign colleagues and come out with less hazardous tobacco breeds, the minister for Agriculture and Food Security, Charles Keenja, suggests.
Short of that, he cautions, the crop has no future globally. Through the Tobacco Research of Tanzania centre in Urambo, Tanzanian experts need to search for a breed which has no or little amount of nicotin, he said.
He continued: "Yes, we need the crop. We need the money from the crop and related industries... However we should not continue to ignore the effects of smoking on our health.
"Tanzania and the world should look for a solution to this problem and the government will help them in this endeavour."
Keenja was inaugurating the new Board of Directors of the Tanzania Tobacco Board (TTB) in Dodoma last week.
The tobacco industry in Tanzania, however, has suffered a number of problems and challenges since it was liberalised about seven years ago.
For some time the relationship between buyers, processors and farmers had been poor, leading to a decline in both productivity and quality.
While dealers, buyers and processors blamed farmers for defaulting on agreements on the modality to agricultural impliments and fertilisers, by selling to other buyers, farmers blamed them for forming a syndicate that led to reduced prices.
Furthermore, the government blamed the tobacco companies for manipulating the market while neglecting laws governing the industry.
For example, by setting low prices, buyers violated the Fair Practice Act No. 4 of 1994 which discourages monopoly by advocating competition of market forces.
According to Keenja, one of the companies went as far as importing 16 varieties of tobacco without the government's consent as provided in the Plant Protection Act No. 5 of 1997.
The new board chairman, Sebastian Chale, said these effects were a result of all the stakeholders' failure to comply with the (new) principles of the free market economy.
Statistics show that tobacco production has declined from 51,095 tonnes in 1996/97 to 27,945 tonnes in 2002/01.
However, the relationship is said to be improving as dealers are once again offering inputs. As a result the board projects a slight improvement as it earmarks to get about 31,600 tonnes in the 2002/03 season.
With a target of producing 250,000 tonnes per annum, Keenja said Tanzanian farmers need to produce 1.8 tonnes per hectare instead of the current 750 kilogrammes. In addition, medium and large commercial farms are very important.
Formed under the Tobacco Industry Act, 2001, the new TTB board of directors consists of one member from tobacco traders (buyers and sellers) and large scale farmers/ small holders growers.
Cooperative societies are represented by three people, one each from flue cured, dark fire cured tobacco and tobacco curing factories. The ministry of Cooperatives and Marketing has one Representative. Another is appointed by the minister, based on his/her experience in the tobacco industry.
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