The Tobacco Commission (TC) says it expects an exciting season in terms of volumes and prices with over 248 million kilogrammes of all types of tobacco combined licensed.
The commission started registering tobacco growers and licensed their tobacco before the beginning of the growing season last year.
To ensure growers that missed the December registration and licensing deadline are licensed, the registration and licensing period was extended to 31st January, 2024. The commission is also conducting crop estimates survey.
Public Relations Officer for the commission Theophilus Chigwenembe said the commission has not registered any major challenges affecting the first round of crop estimates survey for the 2023/2024 farming season which started on 15th this month.
Speaking in an interview, Public Relations Officer for the commission Theophilus Chigwenembe said the commission has organized a training workshop for all the enumerators in the exercise to ensure consistency in the survey activities in all the regions.
He added that every year, the commission holds an industry conference to reflect on what it has been doing and agree on what should be done to improve things where gaps have been identified because it strives for organized information for the industry to achieve certain things.
According to Chigwenembe, during this extension, there will not be any penalties and growers can pay for their registration and licensing after the sale of their tobacco this year.
