DEFORESTATION in the country’s tobacco-producing areas continues at alarming levels, with little being done at farmer level to address the problem, the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) has said.
According to an online publication, Farmers Voices, the tobacco association in its latest report said deforestation was still rampant in tobacco-producing areas.
In Zimbabwe, tobacco is produced in seven regions namely, Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Midlands, Masvingo and Matabeleland region, which is slowly venturing into growing of the golden leaf.
“Deforestation levels in tobacco-producing areas continue at alarming levels, with little being done at farmer level to address the problem.
“The afforestation levy, introduced in 2015, still remains idle as bureaucratic processes hinder its access, while tens of thousands of wooded indigenous hectares each year were destroyed for the curing of tobacco,” the tobacco association was quoted as saying.
The Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe estimates that the country loses about 300 000 hectares of woodlands annually and that 15 percent of this deforestation rate was as a result of tobacco curing.
Zimbabwe has, since the Land Reform programme embarked on in 2000, registered inordinate number of small-scale and communal tobacco farmers.
The growth has, however, translated to high levels of deforestation, a situation that can reduce some areas into wastelands causing extinction of fauna and flora, changes to climatic conditions, desertification and displacement of populations as observed in current conditions in certain areas and in the past through the fossil record.
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