Tobacco Board Moves To Address Tobacco Farmers' Woes

Source from:  KOTA BAHARU, (Bernama)  04/13/2005

A Special Report By Syarifah Hunaini Syed Ismail Old habits diehard. This is what the National Tobacco Board is facing as it tries to persuade tobacco farmers not to be too dependent on tobacco for a living, but to diversify into planting of maize, padi, or other economically viable crops. Some of the farmers were cynical. Hussein Haron, 53, said: "The board should take over the marketing of maize if I fail to do so." He was advised to plant maize, watermelons, vegetables or any other crops which can be marketed easily. Hussein, from Kampung Bujuk, Pasir Mas, was convinced to make the change and opted to plant maize under the integrated crop programme. However, he was not sure of the market for the new crop. Other crops the farmers could choose include beans, groundnuts and herbs. The farmers could also opt to rear goats or freshwater fish. Although he had been planting tobacco for the past 17 years, Hussein was finally convinced that the future for tobacco farmers was not that rosy as the tobacco industry was in the crossroads. The industry was facing too many obstacles, including the government's policy to reduce the output quota of tobacco leaves, implementation of marketing reforms to suit the requirements of the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the dumping of smuggled cigarettes. Hussein realised the sale of tobacco would continue to decline in view of the "Tak Nak" anti-smoking campaign launched by the Health Ministry. Hussein is now a happy man after discovering the returns from maize was quite lucrative. He had offered to participate in other planting programmes initiated by the board. Under the programme, the board, with the co-operation of the Malaysian Agriculture and Marketing Authority (FAMA), provided aid such as seedlings, fertilizers and advice to the farmers. According to Hussein, the first harvest he reaped was on Feb 22 which netted 35,000 maizes. They were sold in Pasir Mas and Tanah Merah. He also sold boiled maize and earned about RM50 a day. Hussein said he made RM13,300 in three months from his 1.6ha plot of land while another project carried out on an integrated basis with three others netted RM24,000. State National Tobacco Board director Hussin Abdullah said the project was financed by the board under the special fund set up to help the 10,000 tobacco farmers in Kelantan. An integrated committee had been set up to assist implementation of the programme. Enditem