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Abstract
This article outlines the historical and contemporary landscape of tobacco production and marketing in Zimbabwe. It highlights patterns of boom and bust dependent on global demand, trading frameworks and degrees of government support to the industry, which are reminiscent of cycles of tobacco production elsewhere in the region. It illustrates at the national and farm level the importance of diversified marketing channels: how the Zimbabwean tobacco industry has twice been at the intersection of two distinctly different global tobacco markets and has, with varying degrees of success, managed to survive and thrive by balancing the competing demands of buyers in these different domains. At the farm level, peasants now also have diversified marketing channels and are able to select between the auction floors and a range of contracting companies. The article outlines a case study of contracting practices in Mashonaland East and highlights that there is currently a lack of functional organisational platforms that can help to redress power imbalances between peasants and contracting companies. It concludes by outlining an incremental approach to setting a regulatory framework that can set sufficient checks and balances for producer associations to hold contracting companies to account.
Acknowledgements
The field research was conducted in 2015–16 with the support of Centre for Applied Social Sciences of the University of Zimbabwe and the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies in Harare.
Notes
1 W. Chambati, ‘The Political Economy of Agrarian Labour Relations in Zimbabwe after Redistributive Land Reform’, Agrarian South, 2, 2 (2013), pp. 189–211; S. Moyo, ‘Changing Agrarian Relations after Redistributive Land Reform in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 38, 5 (2011), pp. 939–66; S. Moyo and W. Chambati (eds), Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White-Settler Capitalism (Dakar, CODESRIA, 2013).
2 See F. Mazwi, W. Chambati and G.T. Mudimu, ‘Tobacco Contract Farming in Zimbabwe: Power Dynamics, Accumulation Trajectories, Land Use Patterns and Livelihoods’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 38, 1 (2020), pp. 55–71; M. Prowse, ‘Contract Farming in Developing Countries: A Review’, A Savoir, 12 (Paris, Agence Française de Développement, 2012).
3 F. Chimbwanda, Implications of Incomplete Factor Markets on Tobacco Contract Farming: A Case Study of Mashonaland Central Province (Zimbabwe) (Saarbrucken, Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011); UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2011: Non-Equity Modes of International Production and Development (Geneva, UNCTAD, 2011); World Bank, World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development (Washington DC, World Bank, 2007).
4 R. Clapp, ‘Representing Reciprocity, Reproducing Domination: Ideology and the Labour Process in Latin American Contract Farming’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 16, 1 (1988), pp. 5–39; S. Sivramkrishna and A. Jyotishi, ‘Monopsonistic Exploitation in Contract Farming: Articulating a Strategy for Grower Coo peration’, Journal of International Development, 20 (2008), pp. 280–96; M. Watts, ‘Life Under Contract: Contract Farming, Agrarian Restructuring, and Flexible Accumulation’, in P.D. Little and M. Watts (eds), Living under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), pp. 21–77.
5 Prowse, ‘Contract Farming in Developing Countries’; Mazwi et al., ‘Tobacco Contract Farming in Zimbabwe’, p. 62.
6 S. Rubert, A Most Promising Weed: A History of Tobacco Farming and Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe: 1890–1945 (Athens, Ohio University Centre for International Studies,1998), p. 2.
7 G. Ncube, A History of Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1850–1960 (Kadoma, Mondo Books, 2004).
8 R. Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia (London, Heinemann, 1977); see also K.G. Davies, Royal African Company (New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1957); J. Goodman, Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence (London and New York, Routledge, 1993).
9 The king of Ndebele, King Lobengula, served between 1870 and 1894 as a king for the Ndebele people in the western part of the country. According to Kosmin, the tobacco given as tribute for King Lobengula was Inyoka tobacco, produced by the people of Inyoka: B. Kosmin, ‘The Inyoka Tobacco Industry of the Shangwe People: The Displacement of a Pre-Colonial Economy in Southern Rhodesia, 1898–1938’, in R. Palmer and N. Parsons (eds), The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (London, Heinemann, 1977), pp. 268–88. The people of Inyoka live in an area of the present-day Gokwe district and still produced tobacco in the 1960s (ibid.).
10 Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia, p. 14.
11 Ncube, A History of Northwestern Zimbabwe; Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia; Rubert, A Most Promising Weed.
12 Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia; Rubert, A Most Promising Weed.
13 Rubert, A Most Promising Weed.
14 Ibid.
15 Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia reviews the size of the each of the reserves in 1914–15 in Mashonaland East as follows: Svosve (28,488 acres), Shiota (159,185 acres) and Wedza (207,458 acres), p. 261.
16 R. Hodder-Williams, White Farmers in Rhodesia, 1890–1965: A History of the Marandellas District (London and Baingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1983), p. 5.
17 F. Clements and E. Harben, Leaf of Gold: The Story of Rhodesian Tobacco (London, Methuen, 1962), p. 58.
18 C. Munhande, ‘The Second World War and the Changing Fortunes of the Tobacco Industry of Southern Rhodesia with Special Reference to Marketing, 1939–1965’ (MA dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, 2000), p. 5.
19 Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe.
20 Munhande, ‘The Second World War and the Changing Fortunes of the Tobacco Industry’, p. 5.
21 Ibid.
22 V.E.M. Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture in Southern Rhodesia with Particular Reference to the Role of the State,1908–1939’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1980), p. 166.
23 Munhande, ‘The Second World War and the Changing Fortunes of the Tobacco Industry’, p. 5.
24 Ibid.
25 Machingaidze ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, p. 167.
26 Palmer, Land and Rural Domination in Rhodesia, p. 146.
27 Rubert, A Most Promising Weed, pp. 21–2.
28 Ibid., pp. 9–10.
29 F.A. Stinson, Tobacco Farming in Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1889–1956 (Salisbury, Tobacco Research Board, 1956), p. 4.
30 Ibid.
31 Clements and Harben, Leaf of Gold, p. 90.
32 Munhande, ‘The Second World War and the Changing Fortunes of the Tobacco Industry’, p. 5.
33 Machingaidze ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, p. 174.
34 Ibid.
35 Munhande, ‘The Second World War and the Changing Fortunes of the Tobacco Industry’, p. 7.
36 Ibid.
37 Clements and Harben, Leaf of Gold, p. 90.
38 Ibid.
39 Machingaidze ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, p. 225.
40 Munhande, ‘The Second World War and the Changing Fortunes of the Tobacco Industry’, p. 12.
41 Ibid.
42 M. Prowse, ‘A History of Tobacco Production and Marketing in Malawi, 1890–2010’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 7, 4 (2013), pp. 691–712.
43 Ibid.
44 S. Ncube, ‘Colonial Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry: Global, Regional and Local Relations, 1947–1979’ (PhD thesis, University of the Free State, 2018), p. 47.
45 Ibid., p. 177.
46 Ibid., p. 27.
47 Ibid., p. 28.
48 Ibid., p. 29.
49 Ibid., pp. 28–9.
50 Hodder-Williams, White Farmers in Rhodesia, p. 189.
51 Ncube, ‘Colonial Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry’, p. 56.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid., p. 69.
54 UK Parliament, ‘House of Commons Hansard’, 567 (26 March 1957), available at https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1957-03-26/debates/f2bf264d-7034-444a-a17e-3f47dd89a0f7/EmpireTobacco(Imports)?highlight=tobacco%20rhodesia#contribution-4e5bb0dd-3b05-491b-a8b1-01cb0cfbf27b, retrieved 3 August 2020.
55 UK Parliament, ‘House of Commons Hansard’, 561 (5 December 1956), available at https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1956-12-05/debates/f247c2bf-078c-4ac4-955b-aec8ce746be9/DollarImports?highlight=tobacco%20import#contribution-d52b38c0-349b-40ef-8b82-c390a3fd8ba8, retrieved 3 August 2020
56 Ncube, ‘Colonial Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry’, p. 56.
57 Ibid., p. 48.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., p. 51.
60 Ibid., pp. 52–3.
61 Ibid., p. 58.
62 Ibid., p. 82.
63 Ibid., p. 98.
64 Ibid., p. 75.
65 Ibid., p. 98.
66 Ibid., p. 91.
67 Ibid., p. 99.
68 A.S. Mlambo, A History of Zimbabwe (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 149.
69 J. Mtisi, N. Munyaradzi and T. Barnes, ‘Social and Economic Development during the UDI Period’, in B. Raftopoulos, A.S. Mlambo (eds), Becoming Zimbabwe: A History from the Pre-Colonial Period to 2008 (Harare, Weaver Press, 2009), p. 119.
70 Ibid.
71 S. Rubert and K. Rasmussen, Historical Dictionary of Zimbabwe: Third Edition (Maryland and London, Scarecrow Press, 2001), p. 325.
72 Ibid., p. 289.
73 Ibid.
74 Mtisi et al., ‘Social and Economic Development’; C. Mumbengegwi, ‘Continuity and Change in Agricultural Policy’, in I. Mandaza (ed.), Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transition, 1980–1986 (Dakar, CODESRIA, 1986), pp. 203–22.
75 Mumbengegwi, ‘Continuity and Change in Agricultural Policy’, p. 206.
76 Mtisi et al., ‘Social and Economic Development’; C. Mumbengegwi, ‘Continuity and Change in Agricultural Policy’.
77 According to Mumbengegwi, the output of cotton increased from a 3% share in 1965 to an average share of 22% for the 1970–74 period. The corresponding figures for wheat and maize are 0%; 8% and 14%; 28%, respectively: Mumbebgegwi, ‘Continuity and Change in Agricultural Policy’, p. 209.
78 Mtisi et al., ‘Social and Economic Development’, p. 133; Rubert and Rasmussen, Historical Dictionary, p. 289. Mtisi notes that ‘a number of “neutral countries” such as West Germany, Switzerland, China, Bangladesh and North Korea did not ratify the sanctions on Rhodesia’, and Rubert and Rasmussen note that Japan traded covertly with UDI Rhodesia.
79 Mtisi et al., ‘Social and Economic Development’, p. 134.
80 Ibid.
81 Rubert and Rasmussen, Historical Dictionary, p. 290.
82 Mtisi et al., ‘Social and Economic Development’, p. 139.
83 M. Mamdani. ‘Lessons of Zimbabwe’, London Review of Books, 4 December 2008, available at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n23/mahmood-mamdani/lessons-of-zimbabwe, retrieved 2 May 2020.
84 While FTLRP was the most drastic and redistributive land reform, the country had implemented land reforms since independen ce. Moyo has articulated its land reform programmes that started after the independence into three phases: S. Moyo, ‘Land Reforms and Redistribution in Zimbabwe Since 1980’, in Moyo and Chambati (eds), Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe, pp. 29–77.
85 Moyo, ‘Changing Agrarian Relations’.
86 Ibid.
87 Moyo, ‘Land Reforms and Redistribution’.
88 S. Moyo and P. Yeros, ‘The Zimbabwe Model: Radicalization, Reform and Resistance’, in Moyo and Chambati (eds), Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe, p. 355; S. Moyo, P. Yeros and P. Jha, ‘Imperialism and Primitive Accumulation: Notes on the New Scramble for Africa’, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 1, 2 (2012), pp. 181–203.
89 L. Sachikonye, ‘The State and Agribusiness in Zimbabwe Plantations and Contract Farming’, Leeds Southern African Studies, 13 (1989), p. xxxv.
90 S. Moyo and P. Yeros, ‘The Resurgence of Rural Movements under Neoliberalism’, in S. Moyo and P. Yeros (eds), Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (London, Zed Books, 2005), pp. 8–64.
91 Ibid., p. 25.
92 Ibid.
93 According to Moyo, the communal areas account for about 42% of land in the country, and 74.2% of these areas are located in the poorest rainfall zones: S. Moyo, ‘Land Tenure Issues in Zimbabwe during the 1990s’, unpublished paper, Centre for Applied Social Studies, University of Zimbabwe, 1992, p. 9.
94 S. Moyo and N. Nyoni, ‘Changing Agrarian Relations after Redistributive Land Reform in Zimbabwe’, in Moyo and Chambati (eds), Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe, p. 203; F. Mazwi, R. G. Muchetu and G.T. Mudimu, ‘Revisiting the Trimodal Agrarian Structure as a Social Differentiation Analysis Framework in Zimbabwe: A Study’, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 10, 2 (2021), pp. 318–43.
95 The statistics referred to below do not discuss the tobacco grown by large-scale commercial farms and estates because neither the Central Statistics Office nor TIMB provide such data.
96 The large-scale farm class comprised only white farmers (100%) at independence; the proportion slightly decreased to 83% by 2010: S. Moyo ‘Land Reforms and Redistribution in Zimbabwe’, p. 43.
97 Prowse defines this form of exchange as ‘a contractual arrangement for a fixed term between a farmer and a firm, agreed verbally or in writing before production begins, which provides resources to the farmer and/or specifies one or more conditions of production, in addition to one or more marketing conditions, for agricultural production on land owned or controlled by the farmer, which is non-transferable and gives the firm, not the farmer, exclusive rights and legal title to the crop’, Prowse, ‘Contract Farming in Developing Countries’, p. 13.
98 TIMB is a parastatal established in 1936 through the Tobacco Marketing and Levy Act. The main role of TIMB is to control and monitor the tobacco market, among other activities. TIMB avails rich reports and tobacco statistics on its website, available at http://www.timb.co.zw, retrieved 10 May 2020.
99 TIMB, TIMB Annual Statistical Report (Harare, TIMB, 2014).
100 TIMB, TIMB Annual Statistical Report (Harare, TIMB, 2020).
101 Interview with TIMB staff, TIMB office, Harare, 10 May 2015. All interviews for this article were conducted by Yumi Sakata.
102 See also J. Moyer‐Lee and M. Prowse, ‘How Traceability is Restructuring Malawi's Tobacco Industry’, Development Policy Review, 33, 2 (2015), pp.159–74.
103 Interview with an anonymous informant, Harare, 20 May 2015.
104 The companies’ origins are based on the interview with an anonymous informant, 20 May 2015.
105 TIMB, Annual Statistical Report, 2020.
106 Mazwi et al., ‘Tobacco Contract Farming in Zimbabwe’, pp. 60–61.
107 See, for example, K. Bird and M. Prowse, ‘Vulnerability, Poverty and Coping in Zimbabwe’, Research Paper 2008/041 (Helsinki, UNU–WIDER, 2008).
108 Moyo and Nyoni, ‘Changing Agrarian Relations’.
109 The number of contractors under the company remains small, since they contract exclusively with middle- to large-scale farmers.
110 L. Mukwereza, ‘Situating Tian Ze’s Role in Reviving Zimbabwe’s Flue-Cured Tobacco Sector in the Wider Discourse on Zimbabwe–China Cooperation: Will the Scorecard Eemain Win–Win?’, China and Brazil in African Agriculture (CBAA) Working Paper, 115, February 2015.
111 Ibid., p. 8.
112 Ibid., p. 9.
113 Ibid., p. 10.
114 Of the entire national A1 farms – about 146,000 farms – 20% are registered as tobacco growers.
115 TIMB, Annual Statistical Report, 2014.
116 The year 2008 was marked as the peak of hyperinflation; it also affected the lower production of tobacco.
117 Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, Census 2012: Mashonaland East (Harare, Zimstat, 2012).
118 ‘Svosve Villages Agreed to Return Home’, The Herald, Harare, 28 June 1998; ‘Svosve Villagers at Home on New Land’, The Herald, 6 January 1999.
119 In August 2019, the government repealed the act.
120 Interview with TIMB official, Harare, 10 May 2015.
121 Ibid.
122 Details from contracts with one company showed that the grower ‘shall not, without the company’s prior written approval, incur any debts or liabilities after the date of execution’ and, in connection with the production of the tobacco on the farm, he should not sell, pledge, or dispose of assets (clause 8). In clause 18, the grower is reminded not to dispose or encumber any assets while any part of the debt to the company remains unpaid.
123 Prowse, ‘Contract Farming in Developing Countries’.
124 Additionally, ‘any payment due by the company to the grower in respect of flue-cured tobacco purchased by the company shall be made within two business days of the date of delivery’, with deduction to the growers’ debt (clause 4).
125 Shona is the local language spoken at the research site and widely in Zimbabwe generally.
126 The inputs marked by dots on Table 4 are provided in advance as a loan and are deducted at the end of the season during tobacco sales.
127 On the demand for private sector extension from contract farming schemes, see the overview and case study in P.F. Jensen, M. Prowse and M.N. Larsen, ‘Smallholders’ Demand for and Access to Private‐Sector Extension Services: A Case Study of Contracted Cotton Producers in Northern Tanzania’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 19, 1 (2019), pp. 122–34.
128 Mazwi et al., ‘Tobacco Contract Farming in Zimbabwe’.
129 Prowse, ‘Contract Farming in Developing Countries’, p. 85. See also M. Prowse ‘Making Contract Farming Work with Co-operatives’, ODI Opinion, 87, (London, Overseas Development Institute, 2007).
130 See K. Akwabi-Ameyaw, ‘The Political Economy of Agricultural Resettlement and Rural Development in Zimbabwe: The Performance of Family Farms and Producer Cooperatives’, Human Organization, 49, 4 (1990), pp. 320–38.
131 Prowse, ‘Making Contract Farming Work with Co-operatives’.
132 I. Scoones, B. Mavedzenge, F. Murimbarimba and C. Sukume. ‘Tobacco, Contract Farming, and Agrarian Change in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 18, 1 (2018), pp. 22–42.
133 Ibid., p. 30.
134 On this topic, see S. Singh and M. Prowse, ‘The Rise in Contract Farming is Likely to Exclude Smallholder Farmers Rather than Benefit Them’, Food Chain, 3, 3 (2013), pp. 131–6.
135 Moyo and Nyoni, ‘Changing Agrarian Relations’.
136 Ibid., p. 235.
137 Ibid.
138 Prowse, ‘Contract Farming in Developing Countries’.
139 M Prowse and P. Grassin, Tobacco, Transformation and Development Dilemmas from Central Africa (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Yumi Sakata
Yumi Sakata
Research Associate, Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies, 19 Bodle Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe. Email: [email protected]
Pius Nyambara
Pius Nyambara
Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Heritage and Knowledge Systems, University of Zimbabwe, PO Box MP167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe. Email: [email protected]
Martin Prowse
Martin Prowse
External Researcher, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7TJ, UK. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]