Vexed with incurring losses for two consecutive years, growers in the traditional tobacco growing areas in Prakasam district have been seeking a honourable exit route as the Centre treats it as a negative crop in view of health implications to the consumers.
Now, the Tobacco Board is providing a window for unwilling farmers to sell their barns, the primary tobacco processing unit, to any interested farmer who is eager to switch over to tobacco cultivation.
Explaining the salient features of the scheme, Southern Black Soil (SBS) Regional Manager G. Umamaheswara Rao says that shifting of barns from one farmer to another is permissible within the same soil region.
The farmer who buys the licence of an existing grower can construct a new barn in a place of his choice or can regularise any unauthorised barns.
Scheme last date
“The scheme is open to farmers only up to March 31, 2017, and may not be considered thereafter,” he says while talking to The Hindu .
In any case, the number of barns in the SBS region will remain unchanged at 25,568, he adds.
Meanwhile, former Tobacco Board member Ch. Ranga Rao says that farmers have been rendered captive growers, meeting the needs of domestic cigarette manufacturers and exporters without getting decent returns.
“What the growers want in this situation is a decent compensation of Rs. 8 lakh per barn to move out to other crops on a permanent basis. Even if the Union Commerce Ministry agrees to pay Rs. 6 lakh per barn, a majority of the farmers will be too eager to quit tobacco cultivation without any hesitation,” he says.
With the northeast monsoon playing truant, the farmers, who have registered to grow tobacco in 46,884 hectares, including 25,718 hectares in the Southern Light Soil (SLS) region, till October-end, could sow only in about 1,000 hectares in both the regions.
“If there are no rains in a week or so, the farmers will have no option but to opt for only Bengal gram, which gives a good yield with the available residual moisture during the winter months,” says M. Bangarababu, another former Tobacco Board member and a progressive farmer from Nagulapupadu.
Farmers also fear carry-over stock of about 50 million kg in Karnataka, where it is a khariff crop with some domestic players shying away from the market and the consequent adverse impact on the sale of tobacco in Andhra Pradesh, where it is a rabi crop.
Dry spell
Meanwhile, SLS Regional Manager G. Ratnasagar, after a visit to the Podili region, observes: “Tobacco farms in the region are witnessing a high mortality rate due to high day temperature and prolonged dry spell. Even alternative crops like red gram and black gram grown by the farmers face moisture stress.”
Farmers in the region are objecting to imposition of penalty even on those farmers who could not grow crop after making registrations.
“We can understand the board penalising farmers who overshoot the crop size. It is unfair to penalise the farmers who are unable take up cultivation in view of the prevailing drought,” laments S. Venkateswarlu, a farmer from Podili.
What the growers want is a decent compensation of
Rs. 8 lakh per barn to switch to other crops on a permanent basis
Ch. Ranga Rao
Former Tobacco Board member
