Article Text
Abstract
Introduction Zimbabwe is the largest producer of tobacco leaf in Africa and the sixth largest globally. Tobacco leaf is a mainstay of the economy, accounting for about 10% of the country’s GDP in 2018.
Methods We use descriptive and regression analyses from a face-to-face survey of 381 smallholder farmers in three major tobacco-farming areas in Manicaland province to determine the prevalence of tobacco-related debt and some of its covariates. The survey was conducted in June and July 2019.
Results 74% of respondents are contract farmers and 26% are independent farmers. 57% of respondents indicated that they were in tobacco-related debt. The likelihood of being in tobacco-related debt is significantly more than average for farmers with the following characteristics (holding other characteristics constant): being a contract farmer, having a larger farm, employing only family labour and not recording expenses (as a proxy for financial sophistication). 91% of contract farmers would prefer to be independent farmers, while 63% of independent farmers would prefer to be contract farmers.
Conclusion There is no evidence to suggest that tobacco growing, in its current state, has benefited the tobacco farmers in Manicaland province. Tobacco farmers are largely victims, rather than beneficiaries, of the sector. There is a strong case for government intervention to improve the conditions of tobacco farmers, either through direct intervention in the tobacco-growing sector, or by encouraging and promoting crop substitution.
- socioeconomic status
- public opinion
- prevention
- low/middle income country
- public policy
Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data are publicly available on https://doi.org/10.25828/CHV2-ZF14.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data are publicly available on https://doi.org/10.25828/CHV2-ZF14.
Footnotes
Twitter @C_J_Dare
Contributors RC and CvW conceptualised the study. RC collected the data; CD conducted the data analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript under the supervision of CvW. All authors contributed to the drafting and revision of the manuscript, and have approved the final article.
Funding This study was supported by the African Capacity Building Foundation (grant number 334), which in turn is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) with funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund (MR/P027946/2), as part of the Tobacco Control Capacity Programme (TCCP).
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Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.