Farmers in the traditional tobacco growing region in south coastal Andhra Pradesh have taken up cultivation of tobacco, the principal commercial crop catering to the global market, thanks to timely onset of the northeast monsoon and remunerative price for their produce in the last two years in a row.
‘’Sowing is going on at a brisk pace thanks to soaking rains in the districts of Prakasam and SPSR Nellore in November,’‘ explained Lakshmana Rao, regional manager of auction platforms in Southern Light Soil and Southern Black Soil regions. Tobacco seedlings have been planted by farmers so far in about 11,000 hectares. Each day 2,500 hectares of land under tobacco is added by farmers aided by the current widespread wet spell in the two districts.
The enterprising farmers in the region had raised the crop enduring losses caused by cyclonic storm Mandous in the early phase last year and raked in the mullah with exporters, dealers and domestic cigarette manufacturers competing to lap up all grades of tobacco, including low grade varieties offering a highly remunerative price of over ₹215 per kg.
‘’We hope to get record prices this year too by growing the crop this winter, going by the trend in Mysuru where it is a kharif crop,’‘ said farmers in Mangamoor village near Ongole. The growers in the two districts are upbeat as the bright grade varieties fetched an attractive price of ₹260 a kg in Karnataka.
‘’The seedlings are available in abundance at reasonable prices,’‘ the growers said.
The seedling prices are a steady ₹1,500 per bundle as against ₹3,000 per bundle ruling after the cyclonic storm last year. Two bundles of seedlings are needed for planting one acre of crop. The Tobacco Board had distributed fertilizers to farmers in the two regions, the RM said.
Meanwhile, the Central Tobacco Research Institute suggested that farmers go for tobacco plantation during early rabi season taking advantage of the ongoing precipitation. The weathermen predicted that the current wet spell will continue for a fortnight in the two districts.
Thanks to the buoyant market condition, the lease rent for tobacco barns, the primary processing unit, had crossed ₹1.70 lakh in the new cropping season as against ₹1.50 lakh during the last season. So also, the lease rent for land had doubled to over ₹40,000 per acre, according to some tenant farmers from Chekurapadu village coming under Ongole II auction platform.
