Upset over incurring losses due to adverse climatic conditions year after year, farmers in traditional tobacco growing areas in Prakasam district on Thursday appealed to the Centre to announce a financial package for dismantling tobacco barns, the primary processing units.
Giving a patient hearing to the woes of farmers in Ongole II auction platform, State Agriculture Mission Vice-Chairman M.V.S. Nagi Reddy assured them that he would take up all the issues raised by them, including a bonus price of ₹20 per kg for low grade varieties, with Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
“Farmers have been rendered captive growers meeting the needs of domestic cigaratte manufacturers and exporters, who give inflated crop requirement at the time of the fixation of crop size. But they drive down the prices especially for low grade varieties and greens,” explained a group of farmers who wanted the Chief Minister to use his good offices with the Centre to provide them a fair deal.
Pressing for compensation of ₹10 lakh to each virginia tobacco grower inclined to dismantle tobacco barns, they explained that farmers had to reconcile with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which was all out to curtail tobacco consumption over a period. Over ₹1,000 crore collected from growers in the form of penalty could be used to provide compensation for them and phase out cultivation on a permanent basis, said former Tobacco Board member P. Bhadri Reddy.
Syndicate alleged
“The Tobacco Board, which regulates crop cultivation, had failed to intervene in the market as traders formed themselves into a syndicate to deny them a fair price for their produce,” YSR Congress Party’s ryots wing district president Mareddy Subba Reddy alleged.
In 2015, the Union and State Governments together announced ₹20 bonus price in the wake of a spate of suicides by tobacco growers. The same gesture should be repeated this year also so that the growers in drought-hit Prakasam district, who had incurred additional cost of ₹1.50 lakh per barn for arranging water through tankers, do not end up incurring huge losses as low grade varieties accounted for much of the produce now, he added.