Tobacco growers fume over plan to cut down production

MYSORE: Tobacco growers from Mysore and Hassan districts have opposed the Tobacco Board’s move to cut down production in the state at a meet here on Monday.Mysore MP A H Vishwanath will meet board officials on April 22 to discuss the issue. The farming community opposed the board’s decision taken on April 10, to cut production by 3 per cent. The board has fixed production at 97.5 million kg.
This comes after Karnataka posted a production of 104.2 million kg this season. Tobacco farmers say the board’s decision will hit them hard and have asked for a gradual decrease in production given the World Health Organization’s move to ban use of tobacco by 2020.The contention of farmers is that the tobacco grown in Mysore-Hassan region is of high quality and in demand in the international market. The Virginia variety grown in this part is in great demand. “But the board is playing truant,” the Federation of Karnataka Virginia Tobacco Growers’ Association secretary Vikram Raj Urs told The Times of India. This is the first time that there’s been a move to cut production in the state, he adds.Tobacco is cultivated on 90,000 hectares in Mysore and Hassan region, the tobacco belt in the state. Earlier it was 1.05 lakh hectares.
With markets fluctuating, farmers switched to other commercial crops like ginger and turmeric. They hope to get back to tobacco cultivation this season. But the board’s move will pinch us, he explained. The board has cut production by 5 per cent in Andhra Pradesh. But it is Karnataka’s tobacco that is in demand in the international market, not AP’s, he pointed out.Farmers accused the board of succumbing to the Andhra lobby and acting as an agent of the buyers. They said 57,000 farmers will be affected if production is cut suddenly.