China: Luoping County Tobacco Subcompany Applies Imported Equipment in Leaf Tobacco Curing

Source from:  Qujing Tobacco Monopoly Administration 09/18/2012

Luoping County Tobacco Subcompany in Qujing City of southwest China's tobacco-producing Yunnan Province, for the first time ever, has recently put to operation a natural gas-driven leaf tobacco curing barn imported from Spapperi of Italy on a trial basis, succeeding in reducing manpower and increasing efficiency in leaf tobacco curing. The trial was intended to test the performance and effects of the natural gas-driven leaf tobacco curing barn imported from Italy. To ensure desirable effects of the test curing, three technicians from Spapperi participated in the test curing by offering technical guidance at the scene during the whole process of the trial. In the workflow of leaf tobacco picking, the three technicians elaborately introduced to farm machinery operators with local tobacco cooperatives key points of operation of automatic leaf tobacco pickers and also points of observation, and meticulously offered training to the farm machinery operators. In the workflow of leaf tobacco curing, the three technicians introduced the methods of leaf tobacco packing into the natural gas-driven leaf tobacco curing barn for curing under the semi-automatic and automatic modes, and guided professionals with the production section of the subcompany to operate leaf tobacco curing with natural gas. It was reported that over recent years, Luoping County Tobacco Subcompany, closely in accordance with the target of reducing manpower, cutting costs, improving quality and raising efficiency in leaf tobacco production, has actively explored ways of realizing whole-process automation in leaf tobacco production. In efforts to attain the target of realizing whole-process automation in leaf tobacco production, Luoping County Tobacco Subcompany has successively imported a series of machinery from Italy including automatic leaf tobacco pickers, capping machines and the natural gas-driven leaf tobacco curing barn to raise efficiency in leaf tobacco picking, capping and curing, which has in turn contributed to making necessary preparations for the development of leaf tobacco pickers meeting the local terrain conditions and production conditions. So far, the natural gas-driven leaf tobacco curing barn has successfully turned out a first batch of cured leaf tobacco. The relevant technicians are conducting testing of indexes in the trial operation. Enditem