Tobacco buyer touts sustainable production

Dar es Salaam. Tobacco buyer, Philip Morris International (PMI), is ramping up efforts to implement its Sustainable Tobacco Production model among Tanzania’s 65,000 contracted tobacco-growing families.

PMI purchases tobacco from three suppliers in Tanzania, contributing more than $150 million (about Sh300 billion) annually to the economic development of the country’s rural areas.

PMI Director Leaf Africa Ben Jowett said that as part of its tobacco sourcing commitments in Tanzania, PMI supported a number of initiatives to improve the sustainability and efficiency of tobacco farmers.

“PMI recognises that with improved agricultural practices, farmers can increase their yield and quality of the leaf thus helping increase their returns,” he said.

Jowett said the focus across Africa remained on encouraging sustainable tobacco production. PMI strived to ensure the efficient and competitive production of quality tobacco in conditions that limited as much as possible the impact on the environment and improved the socioeconomic conditions of the people and communities involved.

“Sustainable tobacco production is the logical outcome, if farmers consistently apply PMI’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) program,” he said. “PMI is working with suppliers and farmers on tangible projects aimed at minimizing the impact tobacco farming has on the environment, such as reforestation programmes, which last year alone saw more than six-million trees planted by smallholder farmers and more than one-million on commercial woodlots.”