Tobacco Board assures farmers of talks with traders

Chairman of Tobacco Board Y. Raghunadha Babu has assured the tobacco farmers of Mysuru area that he’ll quickly convene a gathering with traders and persuade them to extend the worth of tobacco they had been buying from the farmers.

Mr. Babu was addressing tobacco farmers, who had gathered on the Regional Office of Tobacco Board in Mysuru on Friday, to voice their concern over the falling costs of the commodity ever for the reason that public sale season started in early October.

He expressed confidence that retailers and representatives of world cigarette manufacturing corporations will honour the Board’s attraction and urged the tobacco farmers to not panic.

Farmers in Mysuru area had been up in arms in opposition to the federal government over the collapse of tobacco costs, significantly the medium and low grade varieties, making an enormous dent of their earnings. The low grade selection of tobacco, which used to fetch greater than ₹ 100 per kg, is now lower than ₹70 to ₹80 per kg, which had considerably introduced down the typical value of tobacco through the ensuing season, the farmers complained.

Though Mr. Babu attributed the autumn in costs to poor world demand for tobacco within the gentle of COVID-19, the farmers mentioned the traders had been exploiting the state of affairs to extend their revenue margins on the expense of the farmers.

A big proportion of tobacco cultivated in Karnataka is exported overseas, significantly to the European international locations, that are presently reeling underneath the affect of COVID-19, which impacts the lungs. The medical fraternity can also be cautioning the general public in opposition to smoking, which additionally impacts the lungs, he mentioned.

However, Mr. Babu mentioned the state of affairs in Karnataka was nonetheless not as dangerous because the situation of tobacco farmers in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the place public sale season had coincided with the height of COVID-19 in April. The Andhra Pradesh authorities was compelled to intervene available in the market and buy about 13 million kg of tobacco via Andhra Pradesh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (Markfed).

Mysuru MP Pratap Simha, who additionally participated within the assembly, mentioned traders weren’t even sustaining the costs they supplied at first of the public sale season, not to mention rising them. He urged the Board Chairman to carry the traders accountable to the costs that they had quoted whereas giving an indent on the time of crop dimension fixation.

The Board, primarily based on the indent submitted by the traders, had fastened the crop dimension for Karnataka at 88 million kg. But, in view of extra manufacturing, the tobacco output is predicted to cross 95 million kg this yr.

With the traders refusing to buy low and medium grade tobacco, Mr. Simha mentioned the farmers are compelled to incur further expenditure on transport of rejected tobacco bales from the public sale platforms again to their farms and convey them again repeatedly.

Former MP C.H. Vijayshankar, who was additionally participated within the assembly, urged the Board authorities to make sure that the tobacco public sale season culminates by February and never stretched until April-May subsequent yr.

Manjunath, Regional Manager of Tobacco Board, Mysuru, mentioned a complete of 24 million kg of tobacco had been auctioned until now.