SWABI: The growers have demanded of the federal ministry of national food security and research to immediately announce per kilogramme minimum indicative price of tobacco for the year 2021.

Talking to Dawn here on Saturday, they blasted the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) and the federal ministry for violating the tobacco marketing law (MLO-487) and failing to announce purchasing quota for the upcoming year.

“So far neither the quota nor the price of the crop has been announced by the PTB and the federal ministry,” Liaqat Yousufzai, central general secretary of Kashtkar Coordination Council (KCC), told Dawn.

The growers’ leaders said price of tobacco was Rs255 per kilogramme as per the cost of production, but the companies were buying commodity at Rs214 per kg. For the current year, they added the growers’ demand was Rs270 per kg.

They said as fixing tobacco crop price and other decisions had been shifted from the federal commerce ministry to the national food security and research ministry a fresh survey should be conducted acceptable to each grower.

However, the companies and ministry officials said due to shortage of time another survey could not be conducted.

The sources said the bulk of tobacco each year was purchased by Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) and Philip Morris International.

They said according to MLO-487, the tobacco purchasing companies should announce the required quota and price till Oct 31 each year and that the rate they offered should not be low than the outgoing year, thus enabling the growers to strike agreements with the companies of their choice and cultivate crop according to their requirements.

The sources said the deadlock over the pricing surfaced when the growers rejected the survey to know the cost of production conducted by the PTC under the PTB supervision.

The sources said the growers were free to cultivate wheat crop on the tobacco fields if they sustained losses growing tobacco. They said the companies were not bound to purchase the surplus tobacco.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2020