The crop size for Flue Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco for the 2018-19 season has been pegged at 136 million kg.
The Tobacco Board, which met under the chairmanship of Manoj K. Dwivedi here on Monday, also resolved to constitute a committee to study alternative crops.
The decision was welcomed by the Indian Tobacco Association and said that the crop size was in tune with the global demand. The fixation of crop size would also ensure remunerative prices for farmers.
Volatile market
The board has been pruning the crop size for the last 10 years owing to a volatile market and uncertainty over the demand in the international markets.
The farmers who have been cultivating FCV tobacco have been restless over the fall in prices on auction platforms for the last four years. But attempts to cultivate alternative crops have not yielded results. Budithi Rajasekhar, Special Chief Secretary, Marketing Department, N. Ramesh, Director, Export Promotion (Agri) Division, Department of Commerce, Executive Director, Tobacco Board, A. Sridhar Babu and D. Damodar Reddy, Director (CTRI), Rajahmundry attended the meeting. Gaddamanugu Satyanarayana, the grower member of the board Rajahmundry Region, Andhra Pradesh was elected as the Vice-Chairman of the Tobacco Board for one year.
