Tanzania’s agriculture minister says the country is now Africa’s second-largest tobacco producer. Photo credit: juantortola, Pixabay
In a significant milestone for its agricultural sector, Tanzania has emerged as the second-largest tobacco producer in Africa, according to agriculture minister Hussein Bashe, surpassing Malawi and coming in behind Zimbabwe. He noted that Tanzania earned US$400 million from tobacco exports last season.
“Today, Tanzania is the second-largest producer of tobacco in Africa after Zimbabwe,” Bashe said. “…Our target was to produce 200,000 tons, but we ended up producing 122,000 tons due to El Niño rains.”
Bashe’s comments came at a ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the new Serengeti Cigarette Co. cigarette factory in Morogoro, presided over by Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan. The factory, a US$300 million investment, is expected to strengthen the country's position in the global tobacco market and secure consistent demand for Tanzanian farmers. It will operate alongside the reopened Mkwawa Leaf Tobacco Co. processing plant, which is currently undergoing an expansion that will increase its capacity from the current 80,000 tons per year to 200,000 tons, transforming into what Bashe describes as the world’s second-largest single factory for processing green tobacco leaves. According to Bashe, the world’s largest green leaf processing factory is in Brazil, processing 500,000 tons
As reported by The Citizen, the Mkwawa plant shut down during the previous administration because of financial struggles and regulatory issues, including fines amounting to TZS2 trillion (US$740.66 million) from the Fair Competition Commission and the Tanzania Revenue Authority. When Hassan’s government took office in March 2021, it canceled the fines as part of a broader initiative to revive and grow Tanzania’s tobacco industry. According to agriculture minister Bashe, this decision resulted in tobacco production rising from 65,000 tons in 2021 to 122,000 tons this last growing season.
“The decision [Hassan] made enabled this company to raise its processing capacity. If you consider Mkwawa Leaf and Alliance One, Tanzania will now have the capacity of processing 300,000 tons of tobacco. This is the target that we have set ourselves in as far as the tobacco sector is concerned,” Bashe said.