“Minister Mussa trashes tenancy labour system in Malawi tobacco production: ‘Evil’"

[The] Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Henry Mussa has argued…[that the] tenancy labour in tobacco production [is “]…detrimental to the country’s development drive whose beacon lies in agriculture,”…“ We cannot expect to effectively grow our economy when a large proportion of our farmers remain trapped under the poverty line,” he added.

Under the tenancy system, estate owners, normally called landlords, recruit farmers from distant districts to grow tobacco for them on their estates. The tenants are offered accommodation and food rations on monthly basis as well as a cut of the earnings from sales proceeds.

According to a 2015 study by the Centre for Social Concern (CfSC), tenants crucially provide the largest labour input in tobacco farms, accounting for 63 percent of the required labour force to produce tobacco and prepare it for sale. However, the study—titled Tobacco Production and Tenancy Labour in Malawi—observes that tenancy labour in its current practice is characterised by very low returns and often exploitative arrangements that marginalise and degrade the workers.