SWABI, July 16: Growers of Charsadda and Swabi have threatened to stop sale of tobacco if talks with the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) failed to resolve the pricing issue.

Ihsanullah Khan, the president Sarhad Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) at a meeting of the tobacco growers on Monday said that a delegation of growers would meet the PTB officials in Peshawar soon and would inform them about the growers’ reservations regarding tobacco prices. He rejected the 2 per cent increase in tobacco price and said the cost of production had enhanced manifold.

A copy of the decision made by the Agricultural Development Commission (ADC) made available to Dawn revealed that Qader Baloch, the chairman ADC visited the tobacco growing areas in February and after holding meetings with growers and tobacco companies declared that the cost of production of one kg for the year 2006 was Rs59.17. He recommended 2 per cent increase in the cost for 2007 crop.

The ADC recommended that the minimum prices for 2007 crop should not be lower than Rs60.35 per kg. It also advised working on various grades of tobacco by PTB and recommended similar increase for other types of tobacco.

However, the growers rejected the decision and said it was not acceptable to them. They said that the cost of production was Rs74 to Rs84 per kg.

Through a resolution adopted at the meeting the growers demanded that Rs25,000 should be paid by the NWFP government from the cess fund to each Virginia tobacco grower, whose crop was destroyed by recent hailstorm. The amount of Rs34 billion paid to the federal government through taxes should be given to the NWFP government, they added.

In another resolution they rejected the 2 per cent increase in the tobacco prices and demanded that it should be revised by the companies before the start of the purchasing season on July 18.