Tobacco Auction Floors

Lonely Planet review

For a view of Malawi's economic heart, go to the public gallery overlooking the tobacco auction floors at the vast Auction Holdings warehouse about 7km north of the city centre, east of the main road towards Kasungu. This is best reached by taxi, but local minibuses serve the industrial area. The auction season is May to September.

Tobacco is Malawi's most important cash crop, accounting for more than 60% of the country's export earnings, and Lilongwe is the selling, buying and processing centre of this vital industry. Most activity takes place in the Kenango industrial area on the northern side of Lilongwe, the site of several tobacco-processing factories and the huge and impressive tobacco auction rooms.

Tobacco is grown on large plantations or by individual farmers on small farms. The leaves are harvested and dried, either naturally in the sun or in a heated drying room, and them brought to Lilongwe for sale (in southern Malawi the crops go to auction in Limbe).

In the auction room (called auction 'floors', auctioneers sell tobacco on behalf of the growers. It's purchased by dealers who resell to the tobacco processors. The tobacco comes onto the floors (the size of several large aircraft hangars) in large bales weighing between 80kg and 100kg and is displayed in long lines. Moisture content determines the value of the leaves: if the tobacco is too dry, the flavour is impaired; if it's too wet, mould will set in and the bale is worthless.

A small proportion of tobacco is made into cigarettes for the local market, but most gets processed in Malawi before being exported to be made into cigarettes abroad. Most processed tobacco goes by road to Durban, South Africa, to be shipped around the world.