Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera said the country should move away from growing tobacco, because he sees no future in continuing to grow it, reports Malawi Voice.

Speaking on 20 April, when he officially opened the 2021 tobacco marketing season at the Lilongwe auction floors, Chakwera said it was time the country explored other crops like industrial hemp to replace tobacco.
He said the future for the tobacco industry looks bleak because of international anti-smoking lobbies which are leading to a decline in tobacco trade. He described the declining tobacco industry as a harsh reality that farmers and all other industry players needed to accept and look for alternatives, the report said.
“Tobacco use around the world is declining sharply. And by all indication, declining irreversibly. The knock-on effect of this as a country is that every year the backbone of our economy grows weaker. Additionally, although much of our crop is for exports, the industry relies heavily on imports that results in small margins of profit for us as a country compared to other commercial crops,” he was quoted as saying.
He said there was need for an exit strategy that would transition the country’s farmers from tobacco to other crops that are more sustainable and more profitable. “I am, therefore, calling on the Ministry of Agriculture to begin consultations with all stakeholders to come up with a timeframe within which Malawi’s economy will be completely weaned of tobacco. We need to prepare our farmers for a more prosperous future built on other crops that are more profitable and sustainable,” he said.
According to Ministry of Agriculture crop estimates, the country produced 122 million kilogrammes of tobacco in 2021, which generates about 60 percent foreign currency earnings.