THE Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) has rolled out a biometric grower management system to address long-standing challenges within Zimbabwe's tobacco sector. This innovative solution protects tobacco growers, curbs side- marketing, eliminates fraudulent activities and restores transparency and efficiency in the industry.
The new system introduces biometric data capture, linking each farmer's unique grower number to their fingerprints, GPS co-ordinates of their household and farm and demographic data. This comprehensive profiling protects farmers and ensures only genuine farmers participate in the market.
Growers should visit the nearest TIMB office with their national IDs. In just two minutes fingerprints will be captured and linked to their grower numbers. They can also register at tobacco selling points for the 2025 tobacco marketing season.
This facilitates fraud-free grower identification and verification throughout the entire value chain for account adjustments, contract input collection, stop orders, insurance and sales.
This move prevents farmers from having stop orders activated against their accounts, for example, being told they signed up for an insurance scheme when they did not or being contracted by multiple contractors. This ensures that financial obligations are transparently recorded.
Additionally, the biometric grower management system protects the grower. By capturing their indebtedness and linking it to their profile, the biometric system prevents contractors from inflating debts or exploiting growers. Growers can now confidently sell their tobacco, knowing that their identities and transactions are secure.
Side-marketing, a practice where contracted growers sell their tobacco to unauthorised buyers or non-growers abuse grower numbers to sell tobacco, has been a persistent problem. TIMB’s biometric solution aims to eliminate this loophole by requiring identity verification by biometric means at every critical stage of interaction with contractors and sales floors.
The new system is seamlessly integrated with the current registration platform, ensuring a clean-up of the grower database. In the past, non-farmers and fraudulent elements exploited gaps in the registration system but TIMB is already cracking down on these activities.
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We guarantee growers that their biometric data is protected and will only be used to improve the tobacco industry database and processes.
The dangers of unchecked side-marketing caused Zimbabwe’s cotton production to plummet from 351 million kg in 2010 to just 28 million kg in 2013. TIMB is determined to prevent such a collapse in the tobacco sector, a key pillar of Zimbabwe's economy.
The biometric grower management system represents more than just a technological upgrade, it is a cornerstone of TIMB’s vision to transform Zimbabwe’s tobacco sector to a US$60 billion tobacco industry by 2028. This vision includes not only tackling corruption and inefficiency but also creating a system that empowers growers, builds trust between stakeholders and encourages investment in an industry where profits are guaranteed.
