Sichuan's Tobacco Provides Good Farmer Returns

Source from:  tr.itsmyiq.com Nov 19, 2007 11/20/2007

Tobacco growers in China's Sichuan province have seen their income grow steadily over recent years and, this year, the annual income per grower household is expected to reach at least Yuan10,000, according to a Tobacco China Online report quoting the Sichuan Daily. The total 2007 income from tobacco growing in Sichuan is expected to top Yuan1.5 billion. Over recent years, Sichuan has been working towards becoming a strategic high-quality leaf tobacco producing region in China with an annual production set to reach 250,000 tons by the end of the 2006-2010 five-year period, by which time, too, the total annual income of growers is expected to top Yuan3 billion. So far, Sichuan has a tobacco-growing area comprising nearly 300 rural townships in 26 counties with 117,330 ha of tobacco farmland and 170,000 tobacco-growing households. Its annual leaf tobacco production has grown from 68,500 tons in 2003 to an estimated 125,000 tons this year. High-quality leaf tobacco produced in Sichuan is said to be playing an increasingly important strategic role in cigarette production in China and to have become a key blend component of more than 10 large tobacco manufacturing enterprises, including those in Sichuan, Shanghai, Hunan and Chongqing. Enditem