Director General Jiang Chengkang of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) said at a meeting in Beijing on July 16 that leaf tobacco production in China was in a trend of decline in the first half of 2009, with the number of contracts signed for leaf tobacco growing and sales, tobacco acreage, and the contractual leaf tobacco sales volume in the six-month period all going down year-on-year.
![]()
In an address to the 2009 annual national conference of the chiefs of provincial-level tobacco monopoly administrations and general managers of provincial-level tobacco companies, Jiang said that in the first six months of 2009, the number of contracts signed for leaf tobacco growing and sales totaled 1.5061 million, down 736,800 year-on-year; the tobacco acreage totaled 16.85 million mu (1.123 million hectares), down 445,000 mu (29,667 hectares) year-on-year; and the contractual leaf tobacco sales volume totaled 46.84 million dan (2.342 million tons), down 990,000 dan (49,500 tons) from the actual sales volume in 2008.
In the first six months, the average tobacco acreage per household was 11.19 mu (0.746 hectare), up 3.5 mu (0.233 hectare) year-on-year; the area of tobacco fields with seedlings developed in floatation transplanted to them accounted for 83.3 percent of the total tobacco acreage, up 8.7 percent year-on-year; the area of tobacco fields for commercial supply of seedlings accounted for 93.7 percent of the total, up 15 percent year-on-year; and the rates of mechanized preparation of soil, ridge-forming and intertillage reached 57.7 percent, 40.4 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively up 8.7 percent, 5.2 percent and 4.5 percent year-on-year.
In the first half of the year, mechanized transplantation made its debut, with the area of tobacco fields with mechanized transplantation reaching 850,000 mu (56,667 hectares). The rate of intensive leaf tobacco curing is expected to reach 66.8 percent, up 20 percent. In the first six months, the area of tobacco fields covered by unified prevention and control of plant diseases and pests accounted for 34.5 percent of the total, up 4.2 percent year-on-year.
From January to June, a total of 41 townships in 3 countries across China implemented pilot projects of developing a modern tobacco agriculture, with the area of tobacco fields covered by the pilot projects reaching 965,000 mu (64,333 hectares), up 739,000 mu (49,267 hectares) year-on-year.
So far this year, the tobacco industry of China has earmarked 9.966 billion yuan (1.43 billion U.S. dollars) for the construction of infrastructure facilities for tobacco production, up 1.8 billion yuan (257 million U.S. dollars), or 22 percent, year-on-year. Since the beginning of this year, the tobacco industry has funded the construction of 155,200 new intensive curing barns, 4,683.88 kilometers of new tractor paths, and 7,280.87 kilometers of new irrigation ditches.
In the first six months of 2009, the tobacco industry of China carried out unit construction of 73 tobacco production bases across China, covering 1.1 million mu (73,333 hectares), including the construction of 23 units in newly developed areas and 50 in existing areas.
From January to June, the tobacco industry of China exported 54,700 tons of leaf tobacco, up 10.84 percent year-on-year. Enditem
