India: Tobacco Growers Stall Auctions at Tangutur

Source from:  The Hindu 06/15/2016

Unhappy with the price offered by traders, tobacco growers stalled auctions at Tangutur II auction platform in Prakasam district on Tuesday.

The farmers were upset over the unabated market slide ever since the Union Health Ministry introduced larger pictorial warning from April 1 and as a result, cigarette manufacturers stopped production fearing fall in demand in future.

However, the e-auctions were conducted without any hitch at the remaining 13 other auction platforms in Southern Black Soil (SBS) and Southern Light Soil (SLS) regions, Tobacco Board sources said.

The average price fell to Rs. 102.15 per kg for the 4.20 lakh kg marketed on Tuesday on the SLS auction platforms.

However, the farmers at the SBS auction platforms got a relatively better price of Rs. 108.34 per kg for the 5.5 lakh kg marketed on Tuesday.

There were no takers for ‘dark greens’ and BG 2 varieties of tobacco brought to the auction platforms by farmers, complained a group of farmers at the Podili auction platform after Tuesday's trading.

Situation reviewed

Meanwhile, Tobacco Board Manager (auctions) K. Ravikumar along with SLS Regional Manager G. Ratnasagar reviewed the market condition at Podili and exhorted traders to lift the unsold stocks.

Farmers in the SLS region had so far sold 22.5 million kg at an average price of Rs. 119.85 per kg, while their counterparts in the SBS region had marketed 22.4 million kg realising an average price of Rs. 118.21 per kg. The farmers in both the regions still had a stock of 35 million kg to liquidate. Enditem