Tobacco growers in Prakasam district are gearing up for the e-auctions which are set to commence next month with ‘cautious optimism’ with the prices of Flue Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco improving during the ongoing auctions in Karnataka, after a lacklustre start.
The price of the bright grade had touched Rs. 175 per kg in Karnataka earlier this week as against the peak price of Rs. 176 per kg last year, triggering hopes among the farmers here to get ‘reasonably good profits’ for their produce at the Southern Light Soils (SLS) and Southern Black Soils (SBS) auction platforms in the Ongole region this year.
Tobacco Board Chairman K. Gopal told The Hindu said: “After a slow start, the overall market for tobacco is likely be better in AP this season.”
The Board in the past had chalked out aggressive marketing strategies to woo importers by exploring new markets and projecting the brand India image abroad. “The Board is striving to get special orders from Egypt, Thailand and China,” Mr. Gopal said, adding that more export orders were expected as auctions progressed this year. He exhorted ryots to properly grade the produce and give a best presentation with tobacco free of non-Tobacco related material (NTRM) to importers during auctions scheduled to commence on SLS auction platforms on March 11 and on SBS auction platforms on March 16, along Northern Light Soils (NLS) platforms.
Tobacco production in AP this year is estimated to be 183 million kg as against the crop size of 172 million kg, he said. The auctions, scheduled for third week of February, was postponed in view of the slow progress in auctions in Karnataka, where only 68 per cent of the 101.65 million kg of the produce had been marketed so far as against the 85 per cent of the produce during the same period last year.
Ryots in the district got a better average price of Rs. 84.61 per kg for 34 million kg of low grade tobacco marketed last year, the highest in 10 years, owing to the unexpected demand from traders, opined a farmer P. Venkateswarlu. Farmers got encouraging average price of Rs. 124.82 per kg for 100.51 million kg of bright grade tobacco and Rs.119.81 per kg for 76.35 kg of medium grade last year.
“The grading is likely to be a mixed one with more medium and low grades and less bright grade compared to last year when bright grade accounted for a majority of tobacco production,” according to Indian Tobacco Association sources.
