Harare, Feb 10 (IANS): The volume and quality of this year's tobacco leaf is expected to be significantly higher due to the good rains the country received this farming season, an industry official said.

George Seremwe, President of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Growers Association, told journalists on Thursday that the quality of the crops was good and would likely fetch high prices when the marketing season opens soon, Xinhua news agency reported.

"This year, we have got a very good crop. Even the dry land crop, which is rain-fed, is looking like the irrigated crop because the rains were quite good," Seremwe was quoted as saying by the state news agency New Ziana.

The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, the industry regulator, is still conducting a crop assessment to determine expected tobacco output this year.

Seremwe said most farmers were curing their crops in preparation for the selling season, which traditionally starts every March.

Tobacco is Zimbabwe's second-biggest foreign currency earner after gold; Zimbabwe sold 212.7 million kilogram of tobacco at a value of $650 million during the 2022 tobacco marketing season,

At present, only 18 per cent of the crop is grown under irrigation, and the intention is to expand this to at least 40 per cent, according to New Ziana.