Tobacco growers in Prakasam district are gearing up for agitation as the market slide has been continuing ever since cigarette manufacturers stopped production over the issue of larger pictorial warning from April 1.
While exporters shied away from the market on the pretext of lack of confirmed orders from overseas buyers, domestic manufacturers offered lower prices taking advantage of the inaction of the exporters, laments a group of growers in Ongole I auction platform.
Taking stock of the situation on Saturday, the Virginia Tobacco Growers’ Welfare Association (VTGWA) decided to mobilise the farmers from across the auction platforms in the district in the first week of May for a big struggle seeking market intervention by the Union Government, its president Chunchu Seshaiah said.
“It is high time Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Seetharaman, who motored down to the dusty villages in the district in the wake of some tobacco farmers committing suicide last year, steps in to resolve the crisis that has gripped the market,” Mr. Seshaiah said. Foreign players should be allowed to directly take part in the auctions as promised by Ms. Seetharaman last year, former Tobacco Board member M. Bangarababu said.
‘Allow FDI’
He also pressed for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in cigarette manufacturing.
Meanwhile, noted farmer leader and former MP Y. Sivaji found fault with the manufacturers for making a hue and cry over the pictorial warning and suggested that they take advantage of the smaller pictorial warning in other countries to step up exports instead of putting the peasants to trouble at the time of marketing. With production in Karnataka falling short of the crop size, auctions in the traditional tobacco growing areas of Southern Black Soil (SBS) and Southern Light Soil (SLS) began on a bullish note. But the larger pictorial warning came as a bolt from the blue for the farmers with the manufacturers initially cutting down the purchases, forcing the growers to suspend auctions.
Though the manufacturers actively took part in the auctions now, they offered lower prices for the various grades of tobacco.
Former Tobacco Board member Ch. Ranga Rao expressed concern over marketing of just 19 million kg at an average price of 129 per kg in the first 50 days of auctions.
