But that’s not the only good news for Philip Morris ( PM ) and the tobacco industry.
Despite projections indicating cigarette smoking will kill approximately 5 million people per year, nicotine – the fiercely addictive stimulant in the tobacco plant – has been mounting a comeback for the past few years, The Washington Post reports .
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The tobacco growers have been asked not to cultivate the non-recommended variety (NRV) of tobacco to avoid the dilemma like the previous year, when the tobacco producing, manufacturing, and export companies refused to purchase their crops.
The tobacco companies on Thursday held a meeting with the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB), which was chaired by its acting chairman and secretary, Noman Bashir, at the PTC head office on Thursday. Ream more »
Tobacco farmers have expressed their opposition to a proposal of the Department of Finance (DOF) to impose a single excise tax rate on tobacco products.
The National Federation of Tobacco Farmers’ Associations and Cooperatives Inc. (NAFTAC) also appealed to lawmakers to postpone the implementation of the proposed new excise tax scheme on tobacco and alcohol products due to its negative impact on their livelihood
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TOBACCO output is likely to increase after more communal and small scale farmers dumped the traditionally preferred maize and cottons crops.
Statistics released by the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) for the week ending 28 October 2011 show that 4 401 new communal farmers and 5 788 new A1 farmers have registered for the 2012 tobacco season. A1 and communal farmers now represent 47% and 33%, respectively of total registered tobacco farmers. Ream more »
Nageswar Rao of Ngpadu village in Prakasam district of coastal Andhra Pradesh, a farmer who has grown only tobacco for more than three decades, is anxious about his future.
Despite the golden crop having given him handsome returns for decades, Rao is sceptical mainly due to huge rise in the cost of production while price realisation from tobacco this year remains low. It’s due to bumper crops in Brazil and Zimbabwe. Ream more »
Domestic cigarette manufacturers led by ITC Limited have come to the rescue of tobacco farmers in Andhra Pradesh during the current year by procuring more quantity of flue cured tobacco (FCT) than what they needed so as to stabilise the falling prices.
Around 50,000 tobacco farmers in the state are stated to have been benefitted by the supporting role played by ITC, Godfrey Phillips India (GPI) and VST. Ream more »
Tobacco growers are opposing any move to reduce the crop size for the coming season. They met Tobacco Board executive director Ch Subba Rao in the light of the Indian Tobacco Association (ITA) sending a proposal to the board suggesting cut in the crop size.
The ITA had recently written to the board to reduce the crop size to 121.55 million kg for the 2011-12 season as against the 165 million kg permitted for 2010-11. ITA president Bellam Kotaiah informed the board that the tobacco prices in the international market had declined forcing the ITA to bring down the prices and slash the purchase volume. Ream more »
The tobacco growers have said that their hard earned labour was going up in smoke due to the exploitation of the tobacco companies and the apathy of the local bureaucracy that fixes the rates of the commodity.
The Pakistan Tobacco Board has fixed the price of the commodity below its cost of production, Ikramullah Khan, president of the representative body of the growers, the Anjuman-e-Kashtkaran Tobacco Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said in its meeting held the other day at Charsadda.
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Over P220 million worth of production assistance will be provided by the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) to tobacco farmers so they plant rice during the rainy season.
NTA administrator Edgardo D. Zaragoza said the program will boost the drive to become self-sufficient in rice 2013. Zaragoza recently distributed checks to 1,484 farmer co-operators in La Union, Pangasinan, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Abra and Mindoro who are scheduled to plant rice in over 1,242 hectares of land previously planted to tobacco. Ream more »
In October, in chaotic Mexico City, a small army of protestors, sporting placards and shouting into bullhorns, worsened the usual traffic snarl around San Lazaro, the nation’s congressional office complex. Television news accounts showed screaming-mad tobacco farmers, some of whom had boarded buses and traveled 500 miles to warn federal legislators that new taxes on cigarettes would put them out of business.
Inside, lawmakers were in a tug-of-war over a landmark excise tax law that eventually added about 50 cents to a pack of cigarettes and — anti-tobacco activists hoped — would make tobacco less attractive to consumers. Ream more »