India: Tobacco Board Raises Crop Size

Source from:  The Hindu 08/30/2017

Growers don’t have choice with decent returns, it says

The flue-cured Virginia tobacco growers in AP and Karnataka have been provided relief after the Tobacco Board has raised the crop size to 136 million KG for 2017-18. The decision comes after the growers had repeatedly urged the Board against forcing them to grow alternative crops. The failure of alternative crops in parts of Prakasam district had also affected them.

The production committee of the Board at the recent annual general meeting took into consideration the requests of the growers and their representatives, indents given by the manufacturers and exporters through the Indian Tobacco Association, past export and domestic performance, global supply and demand position before taking the decision.

The annual crop size of the FCV Tobacco has been downsized over the years by the Board following uncertainty in the global demand, pressure from the Health Ministry as India is signatory to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) treaty and the sluggish prices. Auctions have been stalled repeatedly by growers demanding higher prices. In this backdrop, growers experimented with alternative crops but that too was met with only marginal success.

The crop size of tobacco grown on the Northern Light Soils is 46 million kg, Southern Light Soils is 46 million kg, Southern Black Soils is 40 million kg and the Northern Black Soils is 4 million kg for 2017-18 crop season in Andhra Pradesh.

“The Board noted that the small farmers of tobacco have no other alternative crop which fetched decent returns as [the] FCV tobacco in the last successive drought years and in the interest of the growers considered 4.41% increase in the crop size during 2017-18 over the last year crop size,’’ said Chairman of Tobacco Board T. Venkatesh.

Members of the Board, Gokaraju Gangaraju, Jayadev Galla, Lal Singh Vadodia, MPs, and others were present.  Enditem