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English/Nat Zimbabwe's land crisis has disrupted deliveries of recently harvested tobacco - Zimbabwe's biggest hard-currency earner - at the beginning of the tobacco auction season. Buyers gathered at a warehouse in Zimbabwe for the tobacco season's opening auctions. But only 7,000 bales of tobacco were delivered for the auctions - less than a tenth of the usual amount delivered to market. The broader implications of the farm-occupation crisis for Zimbabwe's economy are now being seen. Normally up to 90-thousand bales would be available for auction in the first week but only a fraction of the usual harvest is up for sale. So far only seven thousand bales of tobacco have been delivered. The president of Zimbabwe's Tobacco Association says that there are two reasons for the small initial amount of tobacco at auction. The first is that due to the violence, many truck drivers are refusing to drive to farms to pick up the tobacco and bring in to market. He is worried about the future of tobacco farming in Zimbabwe. SOUNDBITE: (English) "We've got a lot of friends out in Europe and they've been patient in waiting for these doors to open. I believe they've set their cap on Zimbabwe and we're justly proud for their customers across the world. May is a critical month for Zimbabwe tobacco farmers. We must have some positive signs that this crop is selling, that farmers are back on their farms and that tobacco seed beds are going in. My concern now as President of this association is what are we doing for the year 2001?" SUPER CAPTION: Richard Tate, President of Zimbabwe Tobacco Association Tate thinks that some farmers are holding on to their crops for a week or so to see if the exchange rate improves. SOUNDBITE: (English) "Those people that are disadvantaged have been heavily disadvantaged, almost their livelihoods destroyed their tobacco gone. But the other side of the picture is there is a big crop in Zimbabwe and it is going to be sold. So we should see it in two boxes: those people who have been hurt, particularly in Macheke, fifty to sixty farms abandoned in the district, sheds were left open, closed for four or five days. So I think we're going to get through this and tobacco must continue." SUPER CAPTION: Richard Tate, President of Zimbabwe Tobacco Association Tobacco is one of the pillars of Zimbabwe's ailing economy and is the world's second biggest tobacco exporter after Brazil. About 1,000 farms have been seized since February and two white farmers with links to the opposition have been killed this month. President Robert Mugabe has insisted that the farm occupations are a justified protest by land-hungry blacks against whites who own about one-third of the nation's productive land. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/cdaf0b8a4678f89623dafe2933b80287 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork