HARARE, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe, Africa's largest tobacco grower, is gearing up for this year's marketing season, set to open in early March.
Tobacco auction floors will open on March 5, followed by contract sales the next day, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), the industry's regulatory body.
Chelesani Tsarwe, public affairs officer for the TIMB, told Xinhua on Thursday that a biometric grower management system will be implemented this season to ensure only legitimate farmers participate in the market and to prevent side marketing.
"The new system introduces biometric data capture, linking each farmer's unique grower number to their fingerprints, as well as the GPS coordinates of their households and farms," Tsarwe said.
She added that the information-gathering exercise will be conducted at designated key selling points.
Tobacco, grown mainly by small-scale farmers, is Zimbabwe's largest agricultural export and one of the country's top foreign currency earners.
Farmers harvested over 240 million kilograms of the cash crop last year, generating more than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in export earnings.
Tsarwe said a team is currently conducting a crop assessment to estimate the expected national yield for the 2024/2025 season.
Zimbabwe exports tobacco to more than 60 countries, with its biggest buyers including China, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa.
The country is now prioritizing value addition of the tobacco leaf locally to boost revenue and create jobs.
