Crop year is the question worth asking in a carry-over market

One phrase has run through the leaf commentary all year: higher carry-over stocks. TIMB named it directly when explaining why Zimbabwe's average fell to US$2.49 per kg. Analysts said the market entered 2026 with inventory materially above 2024 and 2025 levels.

Carry-over is simply leaf that was grown in an earlier season and did not sell. It is ordinary, it is not a defect, and in a long market there is a great deal more of it moving around.

Why it matters to the buyer

Stored leaf is not the same product as fresh leaf. Moisture has been managed, or has not. Nicotine does not vanish, but the figure you were quoted when the lot was first tested may be two seasons old. Colour and aroma shift. For an extraction buyer the alkaloid question is what counts; for a bidi or cigarette manufacturer the handling characteristics matter as much.

None of that makes carry-over material a bad purchase. Well-stored leaf from a good year can out-perform a poor fresh crop. The problem is only ever an undisclosed one.

What to ask for

Three questions settle most of it before a price is agreed.

• What crop year is this lot from? Not the region's typical year, the year of this specific lot.

• When was it last tested, and may I see that report rather than a figure quoted from memory?

• What is the moisture on arrival, and is the nicotine figure reported against dry weight?

A supplier who cannot answer the first question is either not tracking lots properly or does not want to tell you. Both are worth knowing early.

What we put on the report

Every lot we dispatch carries a written batch report, and crop year and origin are on it alongside lot number, product form, weight and packing, nicotine percent, moisture percent, foreign matter and sand, the grade check against the agreed sample, the retained sample reference, and the tester's signature and date.

We describe our nicotine method as in-house titration. We are not claiming it against a published standard, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. We retain a sample from every lot so that a figure can be checked later if a claim is ever raised.

In a market with this much carry-over in it, the retained sample and the dated report are the two things that make a disagreement resolvable.

Sources: TIMB season commentary, 2026. Global inventory commentary via Equity Axis and Farmer's Weekly, August 2026.