Tobacco Board of India, Guntur, has been awarded the Golden Leaf Award at Tab Expo 2019 event in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Thursday. Executive Director of Tobacco Board, K. Sunitha, was presented the award. This is the second time that the Tobacco Board had been awarded. In the year 2014, the board bagged the award for its implementation of an electronic auction system, which has made the marketing of flue-cured tobacco in India more transparent and accountable.
The award was given in the most impressive public service initiative category for the year 2019, for its efforts to initiate various sustainability (green) initiatives in Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco cultivation in India.
The Golden Leaf Awards are created to recognise professional excellence and dedication in the tobacco industry by Tobacco Reporter, an international magazine in the year 2006. Tobacco Board has been awarded for its public service in sustainability to the industry, initiatives on natural farming in tobacco cultivation for production of organic tobaccos, improving the soil health through green manuring, introduction of 365 days green cover in tobacco cultivation, promotion of advanced nursery technologies— Green Tech nurseries and elimination of Non-Tobacco Related Material (NTRM) etc.
India is the world’s fourth largest producer of FCV tobacco. About 88,000 FCV tobacco farmers and their families in the States of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are dependent on this crop for their livelihood.
