At the beginning of this century, the Zimbabwean government embarked on an audacious land reform programme, ostensibly to correct the injustices suffered by local people when the land was colonised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The controversial programme saw an estimated 170,000<\/a> black Zimbabwean families \u2013 mostly small-scale farmers \u2013 taking over agricultural production from about 3,000 white-owned farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a decade under the shadow of macroeconomic mismanagement and hyperinflation, the black farmers became highly productive. As well as staple crops such as maize, they increasingly grew tobacco. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The number of tobacco farmers has continued to grow since, and by 2020, tobacco was Zimbabwe\u2019s second largest foreign currency earner after gold mining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, the tobacco farmers sold more than 200,000 tonnes of leaf worth an estimated US$600 million, according to government figures<\/a> cited by Xinhua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rise of tobacco as a key cash crop in Zimbabwe has, however, had consequences, most notably for the country\u2019s forests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zimbabwe loses an estimated 262,000 hectares of forest annually and 15\u201320% of this loss is due to tobacco, according<\/a> to Violet Matoko, a spokesperson for the country\u2019s Forestry Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To mitigate this, in 2015 the government brought in a levy for tobacco farmers. The idea was to include the sector within the country\u2019s afforestation drive. It is hard to discern the long-term impacts of the policy. But local communities may start to benefit from new woodlots planted to reduce the strain on indigenous forests, the trees of which are widely used to cure tobacco.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow does tobacco cause deforestation?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n