Reports reaching the news desk of CEOAFRICA said that more than 143 million kilogrammes of tobacco worth US$527 million have gone under the hammer at both auction amd contract floors since the opening of the selling season 76 days ago.

Last year, 145 million kilogrammes were sold when the season closed after 145 days of sale Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board chief executive Dr. Andrew Matibiri said deliveries at the auction floofs had declined although they were still high at the contract floor.

“We are still confident we will get to the 170 million kg mark that we set as the target” he told The Herard Newspaper.

Zimbabwe has more than 90,000 registered growers and more than 82 percent of these are small-scale growers who produce tobacco in 1-2 hectares.

CEOAFRICA further reports that the tobacco sector employs more than 1, 2 million people with close to six million dependants. This translates to almost half of the Zimbabwean population.