India: Tobacco Growers Turn to Nirmala for Help

Source from:  The Hindu 05/04/2016

Farmers in the traditional tobacco-growing areas of Southern Light Soil (SLS) and Southern Black Soil(SBS) on Tuesday urged Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to hold a high-level committee meeting to find a solution to the crisis that had gripped the sector.

The market remained lacklustre ever since the larger pictorial warning came into force from April one as a measure to end the nearly one million deaths caused by tobacco use every year. The Union Minister, who had visited the family members of a couple of farmers who had committed suicide last year, should immediately hold a meeting with representatives of farmers and traders to address the various issues before the situation went out of control. A resolution to this effect was adopted at a roundtable conference organised by the local Rythu Sangam under the leadership of its general secretary D. Gopinath. At a time when the tobacco sector was at a crossroads, the revenue-surplus Commodity Board was without a fulltime chairperson at the helm as also the Executive Director and other Tobacco Board members, the meeting lamented. “Unless the Union Commerce Ministry cracks the whip, traders will try to usurp the different grades of tobacco from farmers at throwaway prices,” feared former Tobacco Board member Ch.Ranga Rao.

"Show us alternative"

"It was unfortunate that the manufacturers are putting the growers into trouble at the time of marketing after remaining quite at the time of fixation of crop size by the Tobacco Board based on the indents raised by them though the issue of pictorial warning was very much there since 2008, Virginia Tobacco Growers Welfare Association president Ch. Seshaiah.

The Centre had a responsibility to come to the rescue of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, who had stuck to the reduced crop size of 120 million kg fixed for this cropping season as against the authorised crop size of 172 million kg during the previous year, another former Tobacco Board member M. Bangarababu said. "We are ready for further reduction in crop size next year if shown a viable economic alternative. But the larger pictorial warning should not used as an excuse to bring down the market now," felt yet another former Tobacco Board member P. Bhadri Reddy. Enditem