Tobacco Farmers Helped by STMA Investments

Source from:  tr.itsmyiq.com Aug 7, 2007 08/08/2007

China's tobacco industry invested more than Yuan50 billion in helping tobacco farmers become more efficient and more prosperous during the period from 1985 to 2006, according to a Xinhua article quoting a recent State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) report. The report singled out for comment the Yuan2.67 billion channeled by the Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Bureau into local irrigation systems for tobacco farmers. And it cited Xu Xueliang, a tobacco farmer in Luliang county, more than 100 km east of Yunnan's capital, Kunming, as saying, "In the past, we had to fetch water from a place five km away using an ox and cart. It's much more convenient now as we can get water from the tap right in the middle of the farmland." The STMA report said that local branches of the STMA and tobacco companies had helped improve farmers' planting technologies, and their harvesting and curing techniques. In Guizhou and Hubei provinces, a disaster-relief fund had been set up for tobacco farmers affected by natural disasters. Enditem