Zim Tobacco Buyers Need Vaccination Proof For Licence

Staff Reporter/Bloomberg

Zimbabwe’s tobacco regulator requires buyers of the crop to be vaccinated against the coronavirus before a license for the 2021 season that starts April 7 is issued.

“We want to make the tobacco markets a place of safety as far as Covid-19 is concerned,” Patrick Devenish, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board chairman, said Monday by phone from the capital, Harare.

We are not forcing the uptake of vaccines but encouraging industry-wide participation, he said.

Tobacco is the southern African nation’s biggest agricultural export and earned $782 million in revenue last year, according to central bank data.

Since the land reform process was introduced at the turn of the century, former peasant farmers have been among the major producers of the golden leaf.

Zimbabwe, under the current Zanu PF led administration, is keen to restore agriculture as the mainstay of the economy.

Government has committed billions worth of resources into the sector.