British American Tobacco (BAT) will stop buying tobacco leaf from local farmers and source its Ugandan tobacco needs from 2015 via the independent leaf merchant Alliance One International, said The Observer in Kampala.

BAT Uganda (BATU) is the country’s biggest exporter of tobacco, but lost its major customer, BAT Global Leaf Pool (GLP), when GLP signed an agreement to buy Ugandan tobacco from US-based Alliance One, the weekly newspaper said on its website. Alliance One was expected to contract with most of BAT’s experienced Ugandan growers for the 2015 season.
BATU works with about 18,000 of Uganda’s 65,000 tobacco growers, The Observer said. BATU would no longer buy leaf, concentrating instead on its cigarette business, the newspaper said.