India Chipping away at Export Tobacco Production

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 06/04/2012

Jun 1, 2012-The Tobacco Board of India has decided to reduce the country's flue-cured target by eight per cent, or about 59 million kg, in the current year, according to a Business Standard story quoting the board chairman, G. Kamala Vardhana Rao. During the past year, the board reduced the crop target by about five per cent in Andhra Pradesh and three per cent in Karnataka. The story indicated that the crop size was being reduced because of India's obligations under the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Rao was quoted as saying that the board was encouraging farmers to shift to the cultivation of alternative crops such as maize, cotton and pulses. Last year, more than 4,000 out of an estimated 150,000 tobacco farmers raised alternative crops instead of tobacco. Rao said the union government was examining a compensation package, proposed three years earlier, for encouraging tobacco farmers to shift to alternative crops.Enditem