The Tobacco Industry in Tabora

Tobacco Leaves

[All images via Hannah Ayers]

Smoke and dust seem to be unavoidable in this city. On Sunday I woke up to the distinct smell of someone burning something outside my window. While the dust won’t wipe off my skin. I’ve taken to using baby wipes. At least I feel clean for all of twenty seconds.

Voluntarily inhaling smoke is something only the expats indulge in yet this region happens to be one of the most prominent tobacco growing regions in Tanzania. Tabora is full of tobacco farmers and company representatives who all happen to be incredibly nice people with the most interesting stories to share. One of the tobacco gentleman very graciously offered to take us with him to a tobacco market in a village last Thursday and gave us the lowdown on the process and industry. Considering all my experience in Africa up till this point has been in the NGO sector, it was quite enlightening seeing a functioning industry despite it’s controversial nature. The government takes an active role in encouraging the industry and the system of grading and loaning inputs is quite efficient. In the Tabora region farmers grow the tobacco plant and keep removing leaves as they ripen. Then they burn them in specially built tobacco burning huts to remove all the moisture from them. These are then sorted by the farmer according to grades and then sold at a very organized tobacco market where officials check the merchandise and buyers make bids.

The Millennium Villages Project does not encourage the production of tobacco which is quite understandable considering the nature of the organization and the worldwide condemnation of the tobacco industry. There have been attempts to encourage cotton growing within the region as a cash crop (see Jeff Sachs in TIME July 2007) but the farmers did not take well to this scheme and the initiative was abandoned. From what I remember in Pakistan, cotton is very susceptible to pests but it would be interesting to look into other reasons why this may have failed. It makes one wonder what other cash crops could be grown in Tabora which would not carry the negative connotations of tobacco, yet be able to function within a successful business model. What high return crops/industry would encourage private investment?

When I first landed in Tanzania, it seemed like they had a decent supply of sugar cane and I couldn’t help considering potential sugar mills like those in Punjab which have made their owners quite rich. Also in Tabora itself lowland rice paddies can be seen everywhere and must have decent rice production in the wet season. Yet the dry season completely cripples the system and the wet season merely serves to keep it on life support. Random thought which is probably quite naive: What if we pooled all aid money and concentrated it entirely on water access? Would all other sectors sort themselves out?

Additional Links:

CropWatch: The Tobacco Industry Impacts on Tanzania by Ross Hammond (1997)

Tobacco.org: Article Listing for Tanzania