Christians Turn To Tobacco Farming Despite Religious Objections
Paurosi Mumbure admits that growing up in a Christian family in the Guruve area, north of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, he would frown at anyone who had anything to do with tobacco — from those who smoked it to those who grew it.
As members of the Johane Masowe, an African Apostolic sect, tobacco was a big “no” for their Christian faith. But today, Mumbure, 51, counts himself among the best tobacco farmers in the country, having joined the growing bandwagon of those who were tempted to reconsider their position, finding the lure of the tobacco dollar too riveting to resist.
“I started growing tobacco in 2016 after realizing that this is the cash crop of the moment,” Mumbure told Religion Unplugged. “In the early 2000s, to our consternation, one after the other, my neighbors and even some members of my extended family, ventured into tobacco farming, and as we noticed how their lives changed, our attitudes towards tobacco started softening, and in the end, we too got tempted into getting into tobacco farming.”
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Until the start of Zimbabwe’s controversial land reforms in the year 2000, tobacco farming was largely an elitist cash crop that was produced mostly by about a third of the country’s then 4,500 large-scale commercial farmers.
These 1,500 or so mostly white farmers produced up to 97% of the tobacco that Zimbabwe produced in the year 2000, according to the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board. Fast-track to the 2024-25 farming season, nearly 130,000 farmers registered with the TIMB, the country’s tobacco regulatory body, so that they could sell their tobacco crop.
This tide of a nearly 100-fold increase in the number of tobacco growers has subsumed people like Mumbure, who were once die-hard opponents of tobacco.
Zimbabwe is the top tobacco producer of the globally acclaimed Virginia (flue-cured) tobacco in Africa, and the third in the world. It is a lucrative crop that rakes in over a billion dollars annually.
Traditional cash crops unviable
Over the years, some Christians have tried to stick to traditional cash crops, mainly corn and and cotton, but the government, which is the primary buyer, offers to buy them at prices that are too low and sometimes takes years to pay its bills.
Tobacco (which is sold to private international buyers) has, in recent years, become the only viable cash crop available to most small-holder farmers.
Once a thriving pillar of Zimbabwe’s rural economy and a major export, the cotton sector has plummeted, largely due to non-payment of farmers by the State-owned Cotton Company of Zimbabwe.
In the last 13 years, cotton production plummeted by 96%, dropping from a peak of 360,000 metric tons in 2011 to a mere 13,000 metric tons in 2024 as farmers found the crop to be unviable.
The same applies to maize, which farmers are increasingly shunning because of inordinate payment delays by the State-owned Grain Marketing Board.
This puts farmers, including most of whom profess to be Christian, in a dilemma as to whether to join the “sin economy” by growing the crop, which is lucrative but largely frowned upon in their faith, or stick to traditional crops that are no longer viable.
With over 90% of Zimbabweans professing to be Christian, tobacco is a matter that sharply divides Christians, with church leaders holding deeply conflicting views on the crop and its farming.
Some Christian clerics condemn its production as a sin similar to smoking. Conversely, other church leaders actively bless the crop and encourage its farming as a vital economic lifeline and way to combat poverty.
Christian denominations, such as the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Methodist Church, strongly oppose it, prohibs their members from growing or directly handling tobacco. Citing Biblical principles regarding the body as a temple, they argue that enabling the production of a harmful product actively contributes to the defilement of sanctity.
These churches also point to the environmental disaster that tobacco farming is. Government statistics show that 20% of the forest that Zimbabwe loses annually is due to tobacco farming. The Virginia type of tobacco that Zimbabwe is known for is cured in firewood-heated barns.
On the other end, many indigenous church leaders, particularly those from the Zion Christian Church and various Apostolic and Pentecostal ministries, support the crop. They view tobacco as a lucrative cash crop that creates rural employment and brings in critical foreign currency to boost the national economy.
A riveting temptation
Dubbed “golden leaf,” top grades of the Zimbabwean Virginia tobacco crop can fetch as much as $6 for over two pounds (one kilogram), money that has, over the years, transformed the lives of many families. During the 2024-25 cropping season, Zimbabwe produced a record 738 million pounds (355 million kilograms) of the crop, earning the farmers $1.2 billion.
Pastor Mairosi Mubvumbi, the leader of Hope in Christ Church in Harare, told Religion Unplugged that economic pull and push factors are making tobacco farming an irresistible option even for Christians.
“Previously, Christians used to shun the lucrative tobacco agribusiness as they considered it was against Biblical standards to support smoking,” Mubvumbi said. “However, nowadays Christians are venturing into tobacco farming as they have discovered a new and palatable reason, which is that tobacco has wide use, including the manufacture of medicines.”
Cyril Zenda is a journalist based in Harare, Zimbabwe.