By Davison Vandira
THE Tobacco Industry is gearing up for a stakeholders conference to discuss challenges bedeviling the sector with a broad view of finding sustainable solutions to boost the golden leaf industry.
The Tobacco Industry is among the country’s top earners of foreign currency with the previous marketing season generating more than US$700 million.
The sector’s potential has, however, been plagued by a plethora of challenges emanating from operational inefficiencies including side marketing, non-payment of farmers, and coordinated suppression of prices.
In light of this, the Golden Leaf Advisory has organised a stakeholders conference to iron out all the issues affecting the sector ahead of the forthcoming marketing season.
“We have realised that as a sector we are making headlines for all the wrong reasons and it is now time to come together to clean our house and that is the reason why we are going to converge to map out the way forward such that the country’s agriculture sector is the winner,” said Elisha Maziwisa, Golden Leaf Advisory’s CEO.
Economic observers believe due to prudent policies by the Second Republic, Zimbabwe is fast retracing its footsteps in agricultural activities which also acts as a stimulant to industrial growth hence the cleansing of the tobacco industry is a welcome development.
