Abstract
Most of the tobacco in Zimbabwe are grown by small scale tobacco growers who rely on wood-fuelled inefficient conventional barns with fuel wood requirements as high as 14 kg wood to one kilogram of cured tobacco leaf. This level of fuel wood use is not sustainable as it results in massive tobacco-curing related deforestation. The main objective of this study was therefore to design an energy efficient barn (Kutsaga Counter-Current 1). Thereafter, the curing efficiency of the barn was evaluated against the energy efficient rocket barn and the standard conventional barn. Wood from Eucalyptus camaldulensis at 12% moisture content was used as the curing fuel and all the barns were loaded with tobacco of the same variety and fired at the same time. The results indicate that the barn utilizes 3.5 kg of wood to produce a kg of cured tobacco as compared to an average of 4.25 and 5.32 kg in the rocket and conventional barns, respectively. This high efficiency of the barn is derived from an effective heat exchange system. Given the high fuel use efficiency, the Kutsaga Counter-Current 1 barn is recommended for use by small scale tobacco growers. Key words: Deforestation, efficiency, counter-current, sustainable, tobacco.
Highlights
Zimbabwe is currently the largest producer of flue-cured tobacco in Africa and fifth in the world after China, Brazil, India and United States of America (Tobacco Industries and Marketing Board, 2016)
Most of the tobacco in Zimbabwe are grown by small scale tobacco growers who rely on wood-fuelled inefficient conventional barns with fuel wood requirements as high as 14 kg wood to one kilogram of cured tobacco leaf
The results indicate that the barn utilizes 3.5 kg of wood to produce a kg of cured tobacco as compared to an average of 4.25 and 5.32 kg in the rocket and conventional barns, respectively
Summary
Zimbabwe is currently the largest producer of flue-cured tobacco in Africa and fifth in the world after China, Brazil, India and United States of America (Tobacco Industries and Marketing Board, 2016). These small scale tobacco growers have land capacities of six hectares or less (Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, 2016) and mostly rely on wood–fueled conventional barns for tobacco curing. There are challenges in transporting coal to most small scale tobacco growing districts due to the collapse of the railway system (Miller, 2010) This results in massive use of wood as a fuel source for tobacco curing by most small scale growers giving rise to deforestation (Chivuraise et al, 2016). In order to curb this tobacco related deforestation, afforestation programmes and the use of alternative fuel sources such as coal has been considered (FAO, 2013)
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