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A30 world news
Diahuebs 28 aPRiL 2022
Zimbabwe’s tobacco rebounds amid worries over health, labor
to see that increase “into a The bulk of Zimbabwe’s Gudu, CEO of the tobacco
$5 billion industry by 2025,” flue-cured tobacco crop marketing board, told The
Agriculture Minister Anxious now comes from more than Associated Press.
Musuka said at the opening 100,000 small-scale Black
of the tobacco auction season farmers, many resettled “Many blue-chip companies
at the end of March. on formerly white-owned who are our customers have
farms. Small-scale farmers developed a code that they
The government hopes to produced 133 million kilo- refer to as the sustainable to-
encourage an increase in the grams (about 147,000 tons), bacco program. As a supplier
size of the tobacco crop to 300 about 63% of the total crop we need to comply with that
million kilograms (330,000 of 211 million kilograms code, which lists deforesta-
tons) annually by providing (about 233,000 tons) sold last tion and child labor as some
more local funding to farm- year, according to the tobacco of the undesirable practices,”
ers, Musuka said. marketing board. Gudu said.
With tobacco’s proven role This massive shift away from The country has been on “a
in causing cancer, interna- large-scale commercial farm- blitz of afforestation” that in-
(AP) — Zimbabwe, Afri- has rapidly increased the size tional marketers are urging ing has changed who does cludes farmers receiving tree
ca’s biggest tobacco grow- of its crop, regaining its spot Zimbabwe to avoid any other the work producing the la- seedlings to establish wood-
er and one of the world’s as one of the world’s top five controversy by producing the bor-intensive crop. The big lots in their areas, claimed
top exporters of the nico- exporters of tobacco. It ex- crop in ways that don’t harm white-owned commercial Gudu.
tine leaf, has opened its ported just over 200 million the environment or use child farms used to employ scores
selling season for the crop kilograms (220,000 tons) of labor. of full-time workers but now “We are planting a lot of trees
amid pledges to fight de- tobacco in 2021, according to the small farms are mostly so that we can be like our
forestation and child la- the Tobacco Industry Mar- Most of Zimbabwe’s tobacco family operations that often competitors. For example, if
bor in response to pres- keting Board. is exported to Asian coun- rely on child labor, say rights you look at Brazil, farmers
sure from rights groups, tries, with China the largest activists. there cure their tobacco from
environmentalists and in- This year’s crop is expected single buyer. woodlots that they have es-
ternational buyers. to be about 10% and 15% Another problem is that tablished and not from indig-
smaller due to unfavorable China has been integral to many of the new smaller to- enous trees … that’s what we
Tobacco is on a rebound in weather, according to one of Zimbabwe’s tobacco boom bacco growers can’t afford want to do,” said Gudu.
this southern African nation the country’s biggest mer- by establishing a grower the electricity or coal needed
where production plummet- chants TSL Limited. contract system run by the to cure the tobacco leaves so Reducing the use of child
ed from a peak of 260 mil- state-owned China National they cut down nearby trees, labor could be a harder task
lion kilograms (290,000 tons) Tobacco is one of Zimba- Tobacco Corporation, the causing Zimbabwe’s forests because many families have
in 1998 to less than 50 mil- bwe’s biggest earners of for- world’s biggest cigarette pro- to decline by about 15% to been doing that for gen-
lion kilograms (60,000 tons) eign currency alongside min- ducer. Under the system, the 20% annually in recent years, erations, some farmers said.
a decade later following the erals such as gold and funds firm loans seeds, fertilizers, according to researchers. Children as young as five
eviction of several thousand sent by Zimbabweans living food, and money for labor work in the fields with their
white farmers who accounted outside the country. Tobacco and wood to farmers, who in Under international pres- parents as part of their nor-
for the majority of growers. earned Zimbabwe about $1.2 turn are obligated to sell their sure, Zimbabwe’s tobacco mal upbringing to help meet
billion in exports last year and crop to the firm or its agents. industry is trying to reduce family costs, they said.
In recent years Zimbabwe the government would like these problems, Meanwell
Ushering in Holocaust day, Israeli PM warns of polarization
(AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Naf- a letter with a live bullet and a death Holocaust and make heroes of those particular with increased health risks
tali Bennett delivered a stark message threat. Israeli authorities tightened who survived. Today, the country is as well as widespread loneliness and
Wednesday as the country ushered in security around the premier and his home to a large but rapidly dwindling despair.
its annual Holocaust memorial day, family and were investigating. community of fewer than 165,000 ag-
warning Jews against letting internal ing survivors. Additionally, about a third of Israel’s
divisions tear society apart. “My brothers and sisters, we cannot, Holocaust survivors live below the
we simply cannot allow the same dan- For them, challenges loom. This poverty line, with many sustained by
Speaking at Yad Vashem, Israel’s me- gerous gene of factionalism dismantle year’s ceremony comes as Israel and government stipends and donations,
morial to the 6 million Jews slaugh- Israel from within,” Bennett said. much of the world emerges from according to a group that represents
tered by the Nazis and their collab- the coronavirus pandemic, which survivors.
orators, Bennett also called on the Bennett did not explicitly refer to pol- confronted Holocaust survivors in
world to stop comparing the Holo- itics. But he leads a narrow coalition
caust to other events in history. He that recently lost its parliamentary
spoke after leaders in both Ukraine majority. His government is made up
and Russia drew parallels between of eight parties that have little in com-
their ongoing war and the genocide mon beyond their shared animosity
during World War II. to former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and Netanyahu, now the
“As the years go by, there is more opposition leader, has worked hard to
and more discourse in the world that deepen divisions within the coalition.
compares other difficult events to
the Holocaust. But no,” he said. “No Bennett’s government was formed
event in history, cruel as it may have after four inconclusive elections, un-
been, is comparable to the extermi- derscoring the fissures in society over
nation of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis key issues, including the conflict with
and their collaborators.” the Palestinians and relations between
religious and secular Jews.
Bennett’s speech, coming on one of
Israel’s most solemn days of the year, Israel, founded in 1948 in the wake
came in a deeply personal context as of the Nazi genocide, makes great ef-
well. On Tuesday, his family received fort to memorialize the victims of the