This article applies a global value chain framework to tobacco in Malawi. It illuminates how cigarette manufacturers govern the chain and control first-tier suppliers: the leaf merchants. Due to credence and litigation concerns, manufacturers have become obsessed with leaf integrity. Contract farming offers merchants the ability to meet manufacturers’ compliance and traceability requirements. It also offers an opportunity for process and product upgrading by smallholders, but threatens to exclude poorer growers. The article concludes by outlining current contractual practices and the possible role of third parties in this rapid institutional evolution.