This archive report was first published on 21 June 2020.
Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries and a top 10 tobacco producer, has seen its farmers suffer greatly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For Boniface Namate, a 56-year-old tobacco farmer from Ntcheu, the pandemic has ruined his dreams of buying a new car and building a new house.
Due to restrictions imposed to control the spread of the virus, growers were barred from physically attending the auctions where prices are set, leading to trust issues between buyers and farmers.
"We are not operating normally as there is no interaction between the buyer and the grower," said Betty Chinyamunyamu of the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi.
When the auction season opened in April, Namate and other small-scale farmers said their earnings had indeed evaporated.
"The prices that came from the auction are not what we expected. We are devastated", said Namate.
Malawi's top crop, known locally as "green gold," accounts for over 50 per cent of foreign exchange earnings and 23 per cent of tax revenues.
However, the pandemic has turned up the heat on farmers, with the United States restricting tobacco imports from Malawi last November over allegations of worker exploitation and child labour.
Another farmer, Alick Munthali, who has harvested eight tonnes of tobacco in Rumphi in northern Malawi, finds himself in a similar predicament.
"We don't know how much the tobacco is fetching and we have no opportunity to negotiate the price with the buyer," said Munthali, who has been farming the crop since 1989.
Malawi's main opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera believes farmers have been unfairly treated.
"The farmers basically have been abused," he told AFP.
