SWABI: A meeting called for protecting the rights of tobacco growers asked them to sell their flue-cured Virginia tobacco in future to the entrepreneurs to earn reasonable profits instead of multinational companies.

The meeting, called by Kashtkar Coordination Council (KCC), was held here at Charbagh. Representatives of Anjuman-i-Kashtkaran Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kisan Board, tobacco growers, Swabi Qaumi Mahaz and Jamaat-i-Islami attended the gathering.

The organisers said that the meeting was called to create unity among the tobacco growers and enable the leaders of different organisations to adopt a strategy to work collectively for their rights.

The participants criticised the multinational companies and alleged that they had failed to pay appropriate price to the growers for their tobacco produce. They said that the growers should sell their tobacco crop at their warehouses to the tobacco business community instead of bringing it to the purchasing centres of the companies.

Meeting calls for securing farmers’ rights

They said that the companies had been paying the maximum price of Rs166 per kilogramme of tobacco to the growers while the tobacco traders were buying the same for Rs174, a difference of Rs8 per kg.

Speaking on the occasion, JI provincial deputy chief Mushtaq Ahmad said that benefits of the crop were reaped only by companies, which could not be justified. Both the growers and companies should enjoy the profits of the crop, he said.

MPA Babar Saleem said that he would take up the issue at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly to give the status of a crop to tobacco and it should remain under the control of the provincial government. “It is strange that tobacco, which is being grown only in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has not been given the status of crop,” he said.

Liaquat Ahmad Khan, KCC general secretary, said that after the 18th amendment there was no justification for keeping tobacco crop under the control of federal government. The farmers’ leaders said that they had planned to hold a protest meeting in Shergar on Wednesday (today) against injustices with the growers.

Published in Dawn, Aug 13th, 2014