Zimbabwe reports record tobacco sales, mostly to China, yet many farmers deep in debt

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe has reported record tobacco sales as the southern African nation reestablishes itself as one of the leading growers in the world, and yet the small-scale Black farmers now selling their crop mostly to China are “heavily indebted” and seeing "minimal" benefits, according to an association that represents their interests.

Critics say the farmers are not benefitting as they should from Zimbabwe's tobacco boom, largely because of a contract system that locks them into unfavorable loans and prices, often with Chinese companies operating under the state-owned China National Tobacco Corporation, the largest cigarette maker in the world.

China buys most of Zimbabwe's tobacco to feed its huge market. While other companies and local merchants are also involved in the contract system in Zimbabwe, it is dominated by Chinese firms and their agents.

The Zimbabwean government announced Wednesday that the country, Africa's top producer and among the top 10 in the world, has so far sold 261 million kilograms of tobacco since the selling season opened in March, more than the previous record of 259 million kilograms in 2019. It praised the numbers as proof of the success of a controversial and often violent land reform process that began more than 20 years ago. Starting in 2000, a few thousand white commercial farmers were forced off their land, which was then redistributed to tens of thousands of landless Black farmers.

Acting Information Minister Jenfan Muswere said that Black farmers given land under the reforms now made up 60% of the 150,000 farmers who grew tobacco this season. Overall, small-scale Black farmers contributed 85% of the crop, “demonstrating that government policies in the agriculture sector are sound and continue to bear fruit,”...