India: Tobacco Farmers to be Urged to Adopt ''Next Best Option''

Source from:  The Hindu 01/25/2016

With the 2020 deadline to reduce tobacco cultivation in India fast approaching, as per its commitment to World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the Tobacco Board officials have decided to encourage farmers to opt for crops that are the "next best option" to tobacco.

Armed with findings of the Central Tobacco Research Institute's (CTRI) Station at Hunsur, the officials will hold hobli-level meetings with tobacco farmers to convince them to reduce the area of cultivation and grow the crops such as cotton, maize and green chillies in dryland areas and ginger in irrigated belts.

While cotton will be promoted in tobacco growing areas of H.D. Kote, maize will be advocated to tobacco farmers in Hunsur and Periyapatna. Similarly, green chillies will be promoted in other rain-fed areas. In the irrigated belt of K.R. Nagar taluk, farmers will be encouraged to grow ginger.

Though marigold was also an option in H.D. Kote area, it was found to be "unremunerative" to lure tobacco farmers.

No single alternative

"We will discourage farmers from growing any tobacco crop in irrigated areas. Tobacco grown in irrigated areas is considered a saline variety that does not command a good price in the market," a Tobacco Board official told The Hindu .

Though there is not a single alternative crop to tobacco, which continues to be the most remunerative crop for the famers in the belt, the Board that is under pressure to reduce the area under tobacco cultivation will be promoting the "next best option".

However, the Board officials admit that it would be an uphill task to convince farmers particularly after the average price of tobacco went up this year. "Against the average price of Rs. 107.49 a kg last year (2014-15), the average price this year was Rs. 134.57 a kg," an official said. The tobacco auction, which began in October last year, is expected to continue till February this year.

Growers unsure

Meanwhile, President of Flue Cured Virginia (FCV) Tobacco Growers' Federation of Karnataka Javare Gowda told this correspondent that there was no alternative to tobacco crop.

Dismissing cotton as an alternative, Mr. Gowda said many farmers, who shifted to ginger, had "burnt their hands". "Farmers to tried alternatives have lost their money," he said. Also, there was a well established system for cultivation and marketing of tobacco that no other crop offered. Enditem