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| Business |
| Farmers stop opening tobacco sales in Lilongwe |
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by
Tadala Makata Kakwesa and James Chimpweya, 31 March 2005
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17:42:52
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Tobacco farmers Wednesday forced the first auctioning of the crop this year in Lilongwe to stop abruptly, complaining that the prices buyers offered were low.
The farmers protested by throwing pellets and chants, saying they expected higher prices since farm in-puts this season were higher than the last and also that the kwacha has depreciated.
The highest price offered yesterday was $1.20 per kilogramme while the lowest was 40 cents.
Growers staged a similar protest at the same floor last season for the same reasons. In the past season, buyers offered an average of US$1.11 per kg of burley with the lowest grade fetching US$80 cents at the Lilongwe floor.
Yesterday, farmers said it was better for them to keep the leaf than give it away at these prices.
One of them, Daniel Chibwana, who is also a member of Parliament for Ntchisi East in an interview said the current buyers have been operating in the country for too long and are causing misery to the farmers.
“We lost a lot of money to produce that leaf. Look at the cost of fertiliser, some of us sold our maize to come up with this quality leaf,” explained Chibwana.
Another visibly frustrated farmer Leornard Kafumbata from Mponela, Dowa blamed the Tobacco Association of Malawi (Tama) for not helping them.
“Tama is not helping us and we want to seek the President’s intervention for us to continue growing tobacco,” said Kafumbata.
Tama president Albert Kamulaga in an interview concurred with the farmers, saying buyers ought to come up with better starting prices.
“The prices have shown a very bad signal to the growers and it’s not convenient to continue. We, therefore, had to seek explanation, we have discussed and concluded the matter. Auction restarts tomorrow,” said Kamulaga.
Tama’s public relations officer George Mituka said the farmers are right to expect better prices, “after all this year’s leaf is better than last year’s”.
Tama said earlier this year’s expected production of 121 million kilograms of the country’s major foreign exchange earner would be greatly affected by the scarcity of fertiliser as well as the price.
Last year’s total production was 157 million kilogrammes.
The financial market is currently banking on tobacco receipts to bring forex—presently in short supply—and cushion the Malawi kwacha from falling further.
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