The Adoption of Strategies to Reduce Deforestation from Tobacco Production: A Case of Smallholder Farmers in Headlands Area of Makoni District

Abstract:

Smallholder tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe have not yet fully adopted the strategies to reduce deforestation as recommended by tobacco contracting companies and government agencies such as the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe (FCZ) and Environmental Management Agency (EMA). The majority of them continue to use wood fuel for curing leading to high rates of deforestation. This study focused on assessing the factors influencing the adoption of strategies to reduce the rate of deforestation from tobacco production including gum plantations and coal for tobacco curing in the Makoni district's Headlands area. The target population was tobacco farmers in the study area and the sample size was 320. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Based on the results, the factors that were significant in influencing farmers to adopt were the farmer's age, farming experience, agricultural training, education level and occupation. The study recommends that government agencies including the FCZ enforce the implementation of afforestation events like tree planting day across the country to help protect the environment from deforestation.