TSL Limited’s (TSL) Tobacco Sales Floor (Private) Limited (TSF) will pay farmers within 30 minutes after the sale of their produce to the auction floor for the 2025/26 marketing season, it has been revealed.
One of the key challenges facing tobacco farmers is delays in receiving payments, which they have complained about for years.
The delays have often led to farmers falling short in purchasing farming inputs timeously.
A record 353 million kilogrammes of tobacco was sold in the 2024/25 agricultural season, for a value of about US$1.25 billion.
Paying farmers more timeously is meant to encourage faster deliveries and curb side marketing, whereby a farmer, financed by a contractor, sells their tobacco to a different, unauthorised buyer.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, and Rural Development deputy minister Vangelis Haritatos applauded the announcement during a tour of TSF's auction floor pre-opening for the tobacco marketing season on Friday.
“I’m so happy and proud of the industry because TSF has announced to me today that our farmers will be paid within 30 minutes,” Haritatos said.
“That means maybe our farmers will be paid in 29 minutes, in 28 minutes,” he said.
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“I think this is unheard of, and what we want is other subsectors also to come to the tobacco subsector and learn how it’s done…we have seen the entire system is run through technology.
“We are assessing the state of preparedness in the sense that we’re expecting thousands of farmers to be in and out of the floors in a 24/7 period.”
The deputy minister said 400 million kilogrammes were targeted for sale this 2025/26 season, amid over 162 000 hectares of tobacco having been planted, up 42% from last season.
“This season I believe is right in line with what we are doing in the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Strategy 2,” Haritatos said.
“The plan itself, up to 2025, was to build a US$5 billion-dollar industry in tobacco.
“We have now set a new target that by 2030 the transformation of the tobacco value chain plan now targets a whopping US$7 billion.
“Last year, we touched on 353 million kilogrammes of tobacco. So, if we get to the 400 million kilogrammes that means next year we must get to the 450 million kilogrammes. The following year we must finally get to 500 kilogrammes.”
He said the plan needed to be refocused for tobacco to be locally beneficiated.
TSF general manager Kennedy Zimunya explained how the payment system will work.
“At TSF, we have got a payment system called TSL Pay that we’ve been using for the last four years. This system has been upgraded and modernised,” he said.
“It’s able to credit into farmers’ accounts with respect to which bank that they have.
“So, we have the capacity to pay farmers from at least 30 minutes after their sale is concluded on this floor.”
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) on Friday announced that tobacco and cotton merchants will now be allowed to use locally sourced funds to finance crop purchases without prior regulatory approval.
“With effect from the 2026 marketing season, tobacco and cotton merchants shall be permitted to deploy locally sourced funds for the purchase of green leaf tobacco and seed cotton without prior Reserve Bank approval,” Mushayavanhu said in the 2026 monetary policy statement on Friday.
“Irrespective of the funding model, the tobacco and cotton farmers will be paid 70% of the total value of the crop in foreign currency and 30% in local currency.
“To preserve transparency and ensure effective macroprudential oversight, tobacco and cotton merchants shall, through their authorised dealers, register the quantum of locally sourced funds earmarked for green leaf tobacco and seed cotton purchases.”
The 70%/30% breakdown tallies with tobacco growers set to receive 70% of their payments in U.S. dollars and the remaining 30% in local currency this season.
