India: Tobacco Farmers Hope for Better Returns This Year

Source from:  The Hindu  09/12/2014

Having grown tobacco crop of a superior quality this year, more than 70,000 farmers in the State are looking forward to the auctions from September 15.

About 100 to 105 million kg of tobacco is expected to be harvested from 85,000 hectares of land, mostly in the district, and sold during the auction season that concludes in January 2015.

The Tobacco Board, which commissioned an auction platform in H.D. Kote taluk's Shantipura village on Monday at a cost of Rs 9.5 crore, is scheduled to launch one more in Chilkunda of Hunsur taluk on October 10, taking the total number of auction platforms in the State to 13.

Though the price of the flue-cured-variety (FCV) tobacco grown in the region will be determined by global market conditions, people in the tobacco industry expect the average price to breach the Rs. 129.18 a kg that the produce commanded last year.

While the Tobacco Board officials pointed out that 180 million kg of FCV was exported last year, bringing in foreign exchange worth Rs. 4,085 crore, experts in the industry do not rule out the possibility of exports yielding a higher sum this year.

President of VFC Tobacco Growers' Federation of Karnataka Javare Gowda, who is also a former Vice-Chairman of the Tobacco Board, told The Hindu that the crop size fixed for the State this year was 102 million, the same as last year. In view of the reports that the crop in Andhra Pradesh has not been as good as expected, farmers in Mysore are hoping to get a price better than last year, he said.

But, sources in Tobacco Board also added that African countries had increased their production this year.

Mr. Gowda said the newly-opened auction platform at Shantipura will take the total number of platforms in H.D. Kote taluk to two. "About 20 years ago, one auction platform was enough when the output of tobacco from the region was 4 to 5 million kg. Now, the output has gone up to around 9 to 10 million kg. So, a second platform is necessary," he said. The new auction platform is expected to benefit tobacco growers in not only H.D. Kote, but also Gundlupet and Nanjangud. Enditem