Tobacco Growers in Prakasam District a Worried Lot

Source from:  The Hindu 06/14/2016

Tobacco growers in Prakasam district are a disappointed lot in the wake of steady decline in the prices of different grades of Virginia tobacco on Southern Light Soil (SLS) and Southern Black Soil (SBS) platforms. The e-auctioning of the principal commercial produce in the district had in fact began on a promising note with the bright grade tobacco fetching a high price of Rs. 151 per kg in Tangutur.

However, the farmers hoped for releasing a better average price of at least Rs. 145 per kg of tobacco to make good their losses incurred during last year evaporated in the thin air with the Union Health Ministry making mandatory a larger pictorial warning from April 1. As a result, major cigarette manufacturers stopped production expecting the demand go down in the coming years.

"The market is declining every other day. The Union government, the attention of which has been drawn to the traders forming themselves into a syndicate to deny fair price to farmers, remains indifferent to the plight of peasants," complained former Tobacco Board member Ch. Ranga Rao. "We hoped that the market will move northwards once the exporters got firm orders from abroad. But this did not happen," he added.

It was unfortunate that State Agriculture Minister P. Pulla Rao, who promised to lead a farmers' delegation to New Delhi, had not followed it up by fixing an appointment with Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Seetharaman to press for market intervention by the Tobacco Board, said Rythu Sangam district president M. Srinivasa Rao.

Quit cultivation

Fearing that the average price to go southwards in the coming weeks, another former Tobacco Board member M. Bangarababu said farmers in Nagulapupadu area had decided to quit tobacco cultivation altogether and grow remunerative chilli and Bengal gram crops in a big way this year.

The SLS farmers had marketed so far 21.8 million kg and realised an average price of Rs. 119.80 per kg, while their counterparts in SBS platforms sold 21.8 million kg at an average price of Rs. 118.46, Tobacco Board sources said, adding that the farmers were still left with 35 million kg, including 11 million kg in the SLS region. While the growers in Podili I, II and Kanigiri burnt their fingers in the wake of fall in productivity due to drought conditions, the growers in Kandukur I and II with relatively better yields would be able to scrape through, the sources added. Enditem