“Due to the ban, tobacco cultivation has gone down drastically over the years. In Tamil Nadu, tobacco was cultivated in more than one lakh acres a few years ago. However, it has now dropped to just a few thousand acres. More farmers are giving up tobacco cultivation,” said C Nallasamy, secretary of the Federation of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Association.

Tobacco is grown by farmers mainly in Bhavani, Nambiyur and Puliyampatty in Erode district, Dindigul in Madurai district, Dharapuram in Tirupur district and in some parts of Coimbatore.

“Tobacco is cultivated in about 5,478 hectares in Tamil Nadu. A major chunk of the crop is raised in around 2,986 hectares in Erode and about 100 hectares in Coimbatore district. However, the area of cultivation has come down significantly,” said an official of the Agriculture Department.

Farmers have switched to alternative crops in many districts as the Agriculture Department has been discouraging them from taking up tobacco cultivation.

Yet there are farmers, who have cashed in on the opportunity, to cultivate tobacco and earn better profits. S Arumugasamy, a farmer from Nambiyur in Erode district, said he has grown tobacco on his land expecting a remunerative price. “Last year, the crop could not be raised due to poor rain. This time, we have grown the crop due to favourable cool weather conditions,” he said.

Farmers prefer to cultivate tobacco as the three-month cash crop requires less water and is also pest resistant. Middlemen from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh buy the tobacco to be sold to corporates.

“A kilogram of tobacco leaf fetches around Rs 100 depending on its quality. We expect good pricing this year too due to a drastic drop in production. Tobacco crop is highly remunerative, low in maintenance and has less incidents of pest infestation,” said Arumugasamy.

Apart from government departments, farmers’ associations too have taken up the challenging task of dissuading farmers from raising the crop presuming that a fall in cultivation would eventually result in a drop in production of tobacco products.

“Using tobacco products is causing harm to people. So, we are constantly telling farmers to refrain from cultivating tobacco as it ruins many lives and families. Already, certain varieties of tobacco leaves used in ‘suruttu’ and ‘beedi’ have come down sharply as their use has decreased,” said CM Thulasimani, district secretary of Tamil Nadu Agriculturists’ Association.

He suggested that the government bring a ban on tobacco cultivation to stop the production of harmful tobacco products.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Vice-Chancellor K Ramasamy said tobacco has medicinal properties. “Tobacco cultivation need not be stopped entirely as it has medicinal properties. It can be put to better use in the manufacture of medicine by drug companies,” he said.

Further, the Vice-Chancellor said tobacco, if used as an inter-crop, can prevent pest infestation in other plants. “The insects, which consume tobacco leaves, become dormant and do not cause damage to crops. Tobacco cultivation in Tamil Nadu has already come down though the State accounts for just two per cent tobacco cultivation in the country,” he said.