• A SURVEY ON STRATEGIC OPTIONS FOR THE RESUSCITATION OF THE NATIONAL TOBACCO OUTPUT TOWARDS THE ASSUMED ZIMBABWE POTENTIAL OF THE YEAR 2000

Abstract

Tobacco has been a major contributor to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Zimbabwe economy, at its peak contributing 12% of GDP (Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board 2004). Its annual output has declined from the year 2000 production of 237 million kilogram to its lowest output of 48, 8 million kilogram of 2008. While the decline has been a national concern and efforts to resuscitate the output show improvement with 2010 production at 123 million kilogram (52%), deliberate strategies need to be put in place to identify and correct the output constraining factors. The study, aimed at addressing yield as one of the established factors known to inherently have a positive correlation of r = 0,8 with output (TIMB 2010). From the four tobacco growing provinces of Zimbabwe, two provinces were purposively selected for the study and quota sampling of twenty respondents per province was done. A structured questionnaire was then administered by the researchers. Using excel, applying Pearson correlation ( r) the study confirmed that yield as the main driver of output had positive correlations to three aspects of: experience of the grower, farmer scale of operation and level of variable costs invested per hectare. As a strategy to resuscitate output towards its national potential (237 million kilogram based on year 2000 bench mark), it is recommended that: tobacco training programmes be put in place, growers be capacitated to increase scale of operation and adequate funding be availed to achieve a level of variable cost adequate for target yields which are capable of achieving set national output.