Date:12/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/12/stories/2008071258160100.htm

Karnataka

Helping tobacco farmers quit the habit

Laiqh A. Khan

Compensation package to be offered for switching to other crops

Tobacco Board Chairman Suresh Babu visiting Karnataka this month
Proposal is in view of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control sponsored by WHO

— FILE PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM

CHANGE IS IMMINENT: Farmers will get a package to give up cultivation.

MYSORE: At a time when the price of tobacco is scaling new heights, the Tobacco Board has proposed an attractive compensation package for tobacco farmers willing to surrender their licence and help the country phase out tobacco cultivation.

Tobacco Board Chairman Suresh Babu, who is scheduled to visit tobacco growing areas of Karnataka later this month to elicit feedback from farmers on the proposed package, told The Hindu on the phone that the compensation package included Rs 2.5 lakh for each simplex tobacco barn, besides assistance to the farmers to shift to alternative crops.

Elimination

The Tobacco Board’s proposal comes in the wake of the Union Government’s obligation to gradually eliminate tobacco consumption in the country by 2020 according to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO). India is among the 150 countries that are signatories to the FCTC.

To protect the interests of an estimated 1,00,000 tobacco farmers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, who grow flue-cured variety (FCV) of tobacco, the Tobacco Board has suggested the compensation package, and the Union Government has agreed, in principle, to the proposal.

Prepare project

The Tobacco Board has been asked to prepare a detailed project report to bring down tobacco cultivation in the country by at least half in the next 10 years, he said.

100 million kg

The Tobacco Board’s proposal to offer a remuneration package to discourage tobacco cultivation comes at a time when the crop size has been increased to an all-time high of 100 million kg in Karnataka for 2008-09 in view of the rising global demand for tobacco.

After tobacco prices went up by 80 per cent in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, tobacco farmers in Karnataka, too, expect the prices to reach a high this year.

Rise in prices

The average price of tobacco went up from Rs. 47 a kg to Rs. 84 a kg during the recently concluded auction in Andhra Pradesh. Tobacco farmers in Karnataka, too, are anticipating the price to go up from last year’s Rs. 60 a kg to an all-time high of Rs. 120 a kg, according to industry experts.

Good response

Yet, Mr. Babu said, he expected farmers of Karnataka to respond positively to the compensation package as their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh have done. “The response has been so good that the farmers in Andhra Pradesh want to be accommodated in the first list of beneficiaries,” he said and added that farmers in that State would receive Rs. 5 lakh per barn as the barns in that State were duplex barns larger than Karnataka’s simplex barns.

Sharing Mr. Babu’s views, Karnataka Flue-Cured Variety Tobacco Growers’ Association president Javare Gowda, who is also a member of the Tobacco Board, said that the farmers in Karnataka would welcome the board’s package.

“The cost of cultivation has increased in view of the rise in prices of fertilizers. Also, the farmers are facing an acute shortage of labour. The compensation offered by the board is attractive,” Mr. Javare Gowda said.

An estimated 265 million kg of FCV tobacco, which is normally used in cigarettes, is grown in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Another 400 million kg of tobacco used for chewing and other purposes has not been included in the Tobacco Board’s proposal.

“But we have now been asked by the Union Government to submit a recommendation on the ways and means of phasing out non-FCV tobacco also,” Mr Babu said.