Economic analysis of alternative sources of energy for tobacco curing in Tabora urban district, Tabora region.

A Dissertation 2019

The growth of tobacco production in Tanzania has become a threat to the woodlands due to the amount of firewood used for curing the crop. The overall objective of the research was to assess the economic feasibility of substituting firewood with sawdust and/or rice husks in curing tobacco. The specific objectives were to: (1) determine calorific values of sawdust briquettes, rice husk briquettes and firewood, (2) examine quality of tobacco cured by sawdust briquettes, rice husk briquettes and firewood, (3) compare curing costs for the three biomass. A Bomb Calorimeter was used to determine the calorific values of all energy sources. The grade indices were determined by dividing the value of tobacco in each harvest/reaping per hectare to the weight of dry tobacco per hectare. The grade indices produced by each biomass was compared by using t-test to see if they were statistically different. The curing costs were compared by using t-test to see if they were statistically different. The results indicated that there was no significant difference at p>0.05 between the quality of tobacco cured by sawdust briquettes and that which was cured by firewood. There was significant difference in curing costs at p<0.05. The study therefore concludes that the heat content within the sawdust briquette was able to remove the amount of water in green tobacco leaf, the quality of tobacco cured by sawdust briquettes was the same as the quality of tobacco cured by firewood and the difference in curing cost was brought about by the differences in amount of biomass required to cure tobacco, the differences in distance where these biomass were collected and the differences in labour days required in curing tobacco. The study recommended the adoption of the use of sawdust briquettes in curing tobacco in order to reduce deforestation rate.