Production 
Earliest tobacco grown in Madagascar, exclusively for the use of farm- 
ers, was dark tobacco (tabac corsé), Essentially, the Malagasy likes chewing 
tobacco, and still shows some reluctance to give it up for the cigarette, 
Early planting of light types gues back to 1920, with the intervention of 
the S.,E.I.T.A. Mission of the French Monopoly (Martin Mission), which left 
a lasting influence on tobacco production and marketing. The type introduced 
commercially was largely Maryland. 
Experimental plantings of burley type and flue-cured tobacco were made 
in earlier years, but it was not till 1960 that commercial production of these 
types really began, and definite moves have since been made to increase out- 
put of these types. 
Tobacco planting (corsé) first took place in the Lake Itasy area near 
Miarinarivo (the plateau area west of the capital, Tananarive), Then it was 
expanded to the alluvial plains of the west coast area, from Beroroha north 
to the Sofia Basin, which is south of Port-Bergé. 
Table 1.--Production of tobacco by type, Madagascar, average 1955-59, annual 1960-63 
5-year 
average 
1955-59 
1,000 
pounds 
1 preliminary data. 
In the beginning production was family-type, as it continues to be in some 
areas, mainly the High Plateaus, It is only since 1932--as a consequence of 
colonization--that family production on the west coast has been yielding 
gradually to a system of industrial cultivation of tobacco by concessions led 
by European operators, Production techniques followed there are largely 
those used in France, 
At present, family production occupies the Plateaus as well as part of 
the Majunga Zone on the West Coast. Corsé has been predominantly the type 
produced by this method; however, Maryland too is being grown by ''families"' 
in the Itasy Plateau area, (About 40 percent of family production is of Maryland 
type tobacco.) 
There was relatively little production control of tobacco growing in the 
main areas until 1959, when S.E.I.T.A. began a quota system, probably 
motivated by changes in the types of tobacco S.E.I,T.A. needed for manufac - 
ture. Changes in blending needs lowered the requirements for Maryland, 
Production of this type turned out to be below quotas granted during the years 
1959,.1960, and 1961. 
