The tobacco industry boom

Malawi is a state that has grown tobacco for over 100 years. Today tobacco is the biggest source in the country that brings 60% of the country’s export revenue and it is the largest employer in rural areas with 70% of the workforce in the industry.

Nevertheless the boom in the tobacco industry has brought with it its own negative consequences, especially in matters to do with the environment.

According to a study, Malawi has an estimated 10,000 smallholder tobacco growers, 65% of whom use wood to cure tobacco.

Helmut Geist, a German Scholar, sustained that Malawi clears 55,000 hectares of woodlands annually to cure tobacco. Malawian farmers began to cultivate more and more tobacco when the cigarettes prices rose.

Such good prices are not doing the country’s forests any justice. Farmers, most of whom do not have and woodlots of their own continue to cut down trees wantonly in order to have fuel for curing their tobacco. And most of the trees that are cut are from local forests, never to be replaced.

In order to curing tobacco, the Malawi Government needed for more efficient ways. They found the answer of this problem in rocket barn.

Peter Scott, from Aprovecho Institute in the USA, explained that rocket barns are essentially traditional barns but they are modified to use wood efficiently reducing traditional barns’ wood consumption by 50%.

These new rocket barns look just like the traditional barns and use the same simple materials like the traditional barns with the only difference being that the formers are more efficient.

The rocket barn designer said that barn fires are one of the major setbacks for tobacco smallholder farmers. Two years ago 18% of farmers lost most of their produce to barn fires while last year 10% of the farmers were affected by barn fires.

Scott says there is poor combustion in the traditional barn and the thin metal sheets used in the barns get so hot not only putting the barn at a risk of catching fire but the metal sheets also get worn out quickly and have to be replaced regularly.

"And again if tobacco which is being dried happens to fall on these hot metal sheets it is instantly destroyed while in the rocket barn where heat is evenly distributed, the tobacco can fall on the sheets without getting burnt," said Scott.

Another plus for the rocket barn, Scott says is that it produces good quality tobacco in fewer days of curing than in the traditional barn.

The researchers added that the bigger the rocket barn is the less wood a farmer uses.

And another big plus of the rocket barn is that it is not susceptible to fires and farmers do not therefore lose their produce.